A choose on Monday sentenced Rebecca Grossman to fifteen years to life in jail for the murders of two brothers she struck whereas dashing by a Westlake Village crosswalk 4 years in the past, saying her actions had been “reckless and unquestionably negligent.”
After listening to Nancy Iskander, the mom of 11-year-old Mark Iskander and 8-year-old Jacob Iskander, angrily ask for the sentence to mirror the deaths of each her boys, Los Angeles County Superior Court docket Choose Joseph Brandolino sentenced the philanthropist to 2 concurrent phrases, plus one other concurrent three years for fleeing the scene of the deadly crash.
“She is a coward,” Iskander stated of Grossman.
However Brandolino stated Grossman is “not a monster because the prosecutors portrayed her to be.”
Showing in court docket together with her hair pulled again in a ponytail and carrying a brown shirt over a white T-shirt and slacks, Grossman agreed to pay $47,161.89 in restitution to the Iskander household. Her attorneys say the co-founder of the Grossman Burn Basis had already donated $25,000 for funeral bills.
The sentencing ends a virtually four-year legal saga that noticed her refuse to simply accept duty for the boys’ deaths and attempt to manipulate the case from behind bars even after her conviction.
Dr. Peter Grossman, from proper, leaves a Van Nuys courthouse Monday along with his two kids, Nicholas and Alexis, after Rebecca Grossman was sentenced to fifteen years to life for the second-degree homicide and different expenses stemming from a crash that killed two younger boys in Westlake Village.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
“I by no means noticed anybody. I by no means noticed anybody,” Grossman stated throughout her sentencing. “I might have pushed right into a brick wall …. I don’t know why God didn’t take my life.”
She stated she went right into a state of denial after the collision and shut down.
Nancy Iskander, she stated tearfully, “My ache is a fraction of your ache.”
After a six-week trial crammed with dramatic testimony, Grossman was convicted in February of two counts of homicide, two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and one depend of hit and run with fatality within the September 2020 killings of the 2 kids.
The boys’ mom testified throughout trial that her older kids had been strolling forward of her and her youngest son within the marked crosswalk on Triunfo Canyon Highway when she heard engines roaring. Two sport utility autos had been barreling towards them.
Iskander dived for security, grabbing her 5-year-old son. Her subsequent reminiscence, she stated, is of Jacob and Mark crumpled on the roadway.
Grossman was driving behind Scott Erickson, a former Dodgers participant, who earlier within the day had been ingesting cocktails together with her at a close-by restaurant. She was driving as quick as 81 mph and traveled one other half-mile after slamming into the youngsters, in response to proof introduced at trial.
Nancy Iskander and her husband, Karim, discuss with media after Rebecca Grossman was sentenced to fifteen years to life Monday.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
Prosecutors Habib Balian, Ryan Gould and Jamie Castro wrote to the choose final week that Grossman confirmed no regret: “The defendant’s actions from September 29, 2020, by right this moment present an entire lack of regret and narcissistic superiority that results in just one conclusion, that she shouldn’t be deserving of any leniency.”
On Monday, greater than a dozen of the Iskanders’ family and friends members got here earlier than the choose to explain the opening left after the boys’ deaths and ask that Grossman obtain a prolonged jail time period.
Pastor Chamie Delkeskamp of Ascension Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks stated the deadly crash scarred all the neighborhood, noting that many kids are actually scared to enter a crosswalk. Probation for Grossman “can be a slap within the face of justice,” Delekeskamp stated.
Mark Iskander, 11, left, and his brother Jacob had been killed when Rebecca Grossman struck them in a marked crosswalk in Westlake Village in 2020.
(Household photograph)
Former babysitter Natalie Nashed famous that the “mindless crime … took two harmless souls.”
Sherif Iskander, the boys’ uncle, stated Grossman — whom he described as self-centered and entitled — “tried to get away with homicide.”
“To at the present time, she by no means apologized to our household,” he stated.
Joyce Ghobrial, the boys’ grandmother, informed the court docket: “I’m simply dwelling the remainder of my life to die grieving.” As her voice faltered, Nancy Iskander stood and touched her mom’s again to consolation her.
When Bodie Wallace, who was Jacob’s greatest good friend, spoke, Grossman buckled over in her seat, sobbing. The 13-year-old stated the music “10,000 Causes” makes him unhappy now as a result of he wonders concerning the “10,000 explanation why Ms. Grossman didn’t say ‘sorry’ immediately.”
Grossman’s attorneys, led by James Spertus, had argued that the mom of two, who had no prior legal document, ought to be spared jail time. They requested the choose to contemplate probation with a suspended sentence or a shorter jail time period.
Her attorneys painted a far completely different image of Grossman as a “humanitarian” who labored to save lots of feminine burn victims and victims of home violence.
Whereas saying the Iskanders’ loss is “incalculable,” Spertus wrote in a sentencing memorandum final week that the Grossmans have skilled a unique loss: the lack of a mom to her two kids, and Grossman herself has misplaced her objective in life and “bears overwhelming disappointment, despair and remorse for her function within the tragedy.”
He connected a number of letters from Grossman’s household and buddies, together with one from Grossman’s son, Nick, who stated, “Nothing compares to what the Iskanders are going by, however ever for the reason that accident, it’s simply felt just like the world hates my mother and everyone seems to be in opposition to our household.”
On Monday, he addressed the court docket, saying: “My mom shouldn’t be the dangerous particular person the media has painted.”
Grossman’s authorized workforce performed a 30-minute video that started together with her husband, Dr. Peter Grossman, saying: “We don’t evaluate our ache to theirs.” The video included daughter Alexis relating how her mom had been deserted by her father and molested by her personal mom’s boyfriend, struggling “each sort of abuse by the age of 13.” Nick described his mom as a “very non secular particular person.”
Grossman dropped out of school as a result of she couldn’t afford it, her husband stated, and have become a flight attendant earlier than beginning her personal medical machine enterprise. He additionally recounted the story of a badly burned woman from Afghanistan who was 10 once they took her into their dwelling.
“I give my coronary heart and like to Rebecca,” the now-adult burn affected person, Zubaida, stated within the video. “She is my mom.”
However Nancy Iskander rejected the case for Grossman’s compassion. She stated when she was within the hospital and a physician outdoors the emergency room requested her about disconnecting Jacob’s life help, she noticed Grossman there.
“She regarded me within the eye,” the grieving mom stated, with tears in her eyes and metal in her voice. “That was the second to say one thing.”
