Judge allows jailhouse phone calls for Rebecca Grossman to continue, rejecting prosecution request

Socialite Rebecca Grossman will be able to continue to make jailhouse phone calls after a judge Friday rejected the prosecution's request to block her phone privileges.

Grossman, wife of renowned plastic surgeon Peter Grossman, is awaiting sentencing after a jury found her guilty of the 2020 deaths of brothers Mark Iskander,11, and Jacob Iskander, 8.

The brothers were walking in a crosswalk at the intersection of Triunfo Canyon Road and Saddle Mountain Drive in Westlake Village when they were struck and killed by Grossman's speeding Mercedes. She then sped off after hitting the boys.

Prosecutors argued that in some of Grossman's phone calls, she engaged in improper and potentially illegal conduct.

They wrote in their motion that Grossman's recorded phone calls include "admissions to violating the court protective order regarding the disclosure of evidence on the Internet and to the press" and also "document numerous potential criminal conspiracies such as requests to disclose more protected discovery, discussion of various attempts to interfere with witnesses and their testimony and attempts to influence (the judge) in regards to sentencing and motions for a new trial."

A series of jailhouse phone calls in which Grossman spoke to her husband, Peter, and her daughter, Alexis, between Feb. 23 and Feb. 25 were cited by the prosecution.

Those included a Feb. 23 call in which she told her daughter that she wanted her to "unblock the videos" and "put everything out" and another the following day in which asked her husband if a person she identified as "Tom" could call the judge and "ask him to please let us have a new trial," according to the prosecution's filing.

In a call the day after the verdict, Grossman told her daughter, "These were the worst jurors. I knew they were bad jurors. ... Every single one of them, I could just tell. They weren't on my side from the beginning. I just knew it," according to the court papers.

In Friday's decision, Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Brandolino cited what he believes is the defendant's "naivete" involving requests she made during phone calls with her husband and daughter.

"I'm not going to restrict any of her privileges," the judge said at the end of the hearing while warning her that she could still lose her privileges if he determines that she is tampering with a witness in the case.