A former Major League Baseball player who was with Rebecca Grossman and former MLB pitcher Scott Erickson before a fatal 2020 crash in Westlake Village that killed two young brothers testified at the wrongful death civil trial involving the Grossman Burn Foundation co-founder.

Royce Clayton, who played for about a dozen teams between 1991 and 2007, took the stand Friday morning. Clayton earlier testified at the criminal trial that ended in Grossman’s conviction that he had margaritas with Grossman and Erickson before the deadly crash.

After they left the bar, Clayton said he was at a grocery store when police said Grossman hit and killed the young brothers, Mark and Jacob Iskander.

Clayton said he spoke with Scott Erickson while Erickson was still at the scene.

“All I know is how he explained it to me — I don’t know if he used the word racing — but they were traveling at a high rate of speed. She was directly behind him. And he said as they came up to this crosswalk, he saw the children,” Clayton said and broke down crying on the stand.

According to Clayton, Erickson told him he saw in the rearview mirror that Grossman had hit the boys.

As he was leaving the courthouse, Clayton said he’s always thinking about the Iskander family.

“My deepest condolences will always be with the family,” he said. “I just wish them the best.”

Grossman was convicted in February 2024 of two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving in the Sept. 29, 2020 deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, ages 11 and 8. She was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, having faced a maximum penalty of 34 years in prison.

After Clayton’s testimony, an ER technician who provided CPR to one of the boys described what she heard and witnesses. She said she had to seek therapy after seeing the boys die and hearing Nancy Iskander, the boys’ mom, crying in the ER.

So far, the civil trial included testimony from an expert in crash investigations, a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, crash scene witnesses and others.

Grossman’s civil case attorney Esther Holm had said Grossman never saw the children in the crosswalk and did not try to leave the crash site during her opening statement last week.

Grossman tried to appeal her criminal conviction, but a state appeals court panel rejected her attempt earlier this year. She appealed the conviction on several grounds, including court instructions, evidence and standards pertaining to implied malice.

In the civil case, the boys’ parents, Nancy and Karim Iskander, are asking a jury to examine liability and damages caused by Grossman and Erickson.

During the criminal trial, prosecutors argued Grossman and her then-boyfriend Erickson had been out for drinks earlier that evening and were heading toward her nearby home in separate vehicles when Grossman’s white Mercedes-Benz SUV struck the boys while they were crossing Triunfo Canyon Road with their parents in a marked crosswalk.

Six family members were crossing the three-way intersection — which does not have a stoplight — in the crosswalk when the two young boys were struck. The older boy died at the scene and his 8-year-old sibling died at a hospital.

Prosecutors alleged Grossman was driving at 81 mph in a 45-mph zone seconds before the crash.

Grossman continued driving, eventually stopping about a quarter-mile away from the scene when her car engine stopped running, prosecutors said.

Grossman’s attorneys said during the trial that it was Erickson who struck the boys first with his black SUV. Erickson was never called to testify in the case.

At her sentencing hearing, Grossman said she wanted the boys’ family to know “how sorry I am” and said she did not see the boys in the street.

“God knows that I never saw anybody,” she said. “I never saw anyone. I believe he knows the truth.

“I will carry this with me (until) my dying breath.”