Rebecca Grossman jury awards $176M in damages for death of two young boys ⁠58%

By Jeremy Louwerse⁠0%

6/4/2026, 12:13:27 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Biased Writer Voice, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 52.7% saturation with 175 hits. Analysis detected 1,301 faulty-reasoning hits from 332 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 54.8% and a BS Rank of ⁠58% (8,775 of 20,547 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 57.30% of the article peer group.

A jury awarded $176 million to the family of two young boys killed by Los Angeles socialite Rebecca Grossman, finding both her and her former professional baseball player lover liable for the deadly crash. 
Grossman, who was convicted of murder for killing the two young boys with her car during a chase with Erickson, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in 2024. 
Also drawing scrutiny was Scott Erickson, a former Major League Baseball pitcher who was driving a separate car nearby, raising questions about whether the pair had been speeding together. 
Erickson, however, was never charged. 
Erickson finally addressed the tragedy when he took the stand last month in the wrongful death trial. 
He testified that he stepped on the gas for probably two or three seconds to get through, because I thought that was the safest process,” Erickson told the Van Nuys courtroom on May 13 during the wrongful death trial tied to the deaths of brothers Mark and Jacob Iskander, 11 and 8. 
Just after 7 p.m. on September 29, 2020, the boys were crossing Triunfo Canyon Road with their mother and younger brother when witnesses saw cars racing toward them. 
Grossman, co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation and wife of plastic surgeon Dr. 
Peter Grossman, was allegedly driving 73 mph in a 45-mph zone when the crash occurred. 
Nancy Iskander, the mother of the two boys, said she grabbed her youngest son and dove out of the way of Erickson’s SUV before seeing Grossman’s vehicle speed through where Mark and Jacob had been standing. 
Steamy WhatsApp messages between Grossman and Erickson show the couple coordinating their stories while exchanging “I love yous” as prosecutors attempted to unravel what happened on the night the socialite mowed down two little boys in a crosswalk. 
The socialite remains in jail and struck the boys with such force that the older brother flew more than 250 feet. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 27.7%Jeremy Louwerse: 3.6%California Post: 4.1%Confirmation Bias27.7%This article: 9.3%Jeremy Louwerse: 1.2%California Post: 1.4%Anchoring Bias9.3%This article: 17.2%Jeremy Louwerse: 4.5%California Post: 4.2%Availability Heuristic17.2%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 1.0%California Post: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 6.3%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.2%California Post: 0.7%Hindsight Bias6.3%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.9%California Post: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 30.4%Jeremy Louwerse: 11.7%California Post: 10.4%Framing Effect30.4%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.6%California Post: 0.9%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.2%California Post: 0.6%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.3%California Post: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.4%California Post: 2.5%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.4%California Post: 1.5%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 52.7%Jeremy Louwerse: 19.2%California Post: 16.1%Negativity Bias52.7%This article: 10.8%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.7%California Post: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias10.8%This article: 27.1%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.0%California Post: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error27.1%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.3%California Post: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 1.4%California Post: 1.6%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.6%California Post: 1.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 1.9%California Post: 3.0%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.7%California Post: 0.6%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 5.1%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.8%California Post: 1.6%Recency Bias5.1%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.5%California Post: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.7%California Post: 2.6%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.3%California Post: 0.5%Straw Man0.0%This article: 9.3%Jeremy Louwerse: 3.9%California Post: 4.2%Appeal to Authority9.3%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.6%California Post: 1.5%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 1.0%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.2%California Post: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 16.6%Jeremy Louwerse: 4.0%California Post: 5.5%Hasty Generalization16.6%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.7%California Post: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.6%California Post: 1.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 22.3%Jeremy Louwerse: 10.6%California Post: 9.0%Appeal to Emotion22.3%This article: 11.4%Jeremy Louwerse: 1.3%California Post: 1.1%Begging the Question11.4%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 1.8%California Post: 2.7%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 4.5%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.3%California Post: 0.8%Burden of Proof4.5%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.2%California Post: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.1%California Post: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 19.3%Jeremy Louwerse: 3.7%California Post: 3.6%Anecdotal19.3%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 45.8%Jeremy Louwerse: 3.6%California Post: 2.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)45.8%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.0%California Post: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.4%California Post: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.5%California Post: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 15.7%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.9%California Post: 3.2%Unattributed Quote15.7%This article: 27.1%Jeremy Louwerse: 2.7%California Post: 2.1%Quote-first Misdirection27.1%This article: 33.1%Jeremy Louwerse: 16.4%California Post: 13.2%Biased Writer Voice33.1%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.7%California Post: 1.4%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.4%California Post: 0.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 4.2%California Post: 3.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jeremy Louwerse: 0.7%California Post: 6.0%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

332 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers27%attributed speech244writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 34 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 100.0% coverageScott Erickson • 52 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 28 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageNancy Iskander • 36 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 38 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Nancy Iskander

100%flagged-word coverage
36 attributed words41% of attributed speech89% writer coverage
0%25.0%50.0%Biased Writer Voice-45.1 ptsWriter: 45.1%Nancy Iskander: 0.0%0.0%Quote-first Misdirection-15.6 ptsWriter: 15.6%Nancy Iskander: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.