Trial began today in a wrongful death lawsuit against a 62-year-old California woman who is serving 15 years to life in prison for killing two boys while speeding in her SUV in 2020. The victims were brothers Mark Iskander, 11, and Jacob Iskander, 8. The boys' parents, Nancy and Karim Iskander, are suing their killer, Rebecca Grossman; her husband, Peter Grossman; and her ex-boyfriend, Scott Erikson, for wrongful death. The Iskanders' attorney Brian Panish, one of the most successful plaintiffs' lawyers in the United States, gave his opening statement this morning (Friday, April 24) in Judge Huey P. Cotton's courtroom at the Los Angeles County Superior Court courthouse in Van Nuys, a neighborhood of LA. You can watch his entire 90 minute statement on my YouTube channel or Facebook page. This clip has been edited for brevity so people who have never heard of this can get a quick synopsis of what happened. Panish told jurors how Grossman and Erikson were drinking alcohol before they got in their Mercedes SUVs and, according to several witnesses, raced while speeding on Triunfo Canyon Road near Westlake Lake, an affluent area of Los Angeles. Nancy Iskander and her three sons were crossing the road in a marked crosswalk when Grossman struck Mark and Jacob with her SUV. "So Mrs. Iskander hears the revving noise. She looks. These cars are approaching. She grabs her son, Zachary, dives out of the way. But because Mr. Erikson is racing and he's in the first lane, he blocks off the boys' ability to escape, and they're both hit at 73 miles an hour by Mrs. Grossman. 73 miles an hour, which is the equivalent of taking a 4,800-pound car, which this weighed, and dropping it from a 12-story building," Panish said. "That's the force that was placed on these two boys at 73 miles an hour," he said. He showed jurors photos of Grossman's SUV. "I'm not going to show you right now the pictures and the graphic evidence of the injuries, but these two young boys, you can see the damage to the car. That is what these boys — they're not very big. The speed, the speed and force caused that damage. No one should have to endure that," Panish said. A separate jury in 2024 convicted Rebecca Grossman of two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit and run driving resulting in death or serious injury. An appellate panel affirmed her convictions in a 143-page opinion published on March 17. #law #crime #court #attorney - @meghannmcuniff