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DA accuses LA woman who killed 2 boys in crosswalk of 'illegal conduct' from jail, her legal team of jury tampering

Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times on

Published in News & Features

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors want Rebecca Grossman’s access to jailhouse phones cut off after they say she encouraged illegal conduct and her team attempted to tamper with jurors who convicted her of double murder.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Gould and his colleague Jamie Castro filed a motion Monday that detailed several jailhouse calls Grossman had with her daughter and husband since her Feb. 23 conviction for killing two young brothers in a crosswalk while speeding on a residential Westlake Village street.

According to court documents, Grossman told her daughter, Alexis, to make public a deputy-worn body camera video that had been sealed by the judge and to direct another person to talk to the judge about a new trial. She also encouraged tracking down witnesses to get them to say their testimony was directed.

The jury last month found Grossman, 60, guilty of two counts of murder, two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter and one count of hit and run in the 2020 deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, ages 11 and 8. She faces 34 years to life in prison at sentencing.

Gould and Castro wrote that two jurors have reported that three others on the jury were contacted by Paul Stuckey, a private investigator, despite the judge’s sealing jurors’ personal information.

“This investigator did not properly identify himself, rather stating he was a ‘private investigator for the family,’ ” prosecutors wrote in the motion filed Monday. Stuckey does not work for the Iskanders or the prosecution, but rather for Grossman, the prosecutor said.

 

The prosecutors said the only way the investigator could have found the jurors is if he had access to their personal information, which was sealed by Judge Joseph Brandolino, as is procedure in California following a verdict. The defense may petition the court for a juror’s identity if a compelling interest is shown, but that has not been done in this case, the filing stated.

“The only ways in which the defense could have obtained this personal juror identification information was either by photographing the jury list that was presented to counsel during jury selection or copying the names down off this same list,” prosecutors wrote. “The defense is actively attempting to engage in jury tampering ... and illegally in possession of jury personal identifying information.”

The prosecutors are asking the court for all such information to be returned.

They also asked the judge to bar Grossman from contacting the Iskanders. Nancy and Karim Iskander, the parents of the boys Grossman is convicted of killing, informed prosecutors they received a letter from her on March 13.

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