Nick Reiner seeks trust money for defense from parents' estate

nick reiner filed a petition Monday in Los Angeles County court seeking money from a trust his parents left him to help pay for his defense in the killings case. The 32-year-old says the funds were withheld without legal justification, and the filing asks the court to let him use money from the trust established in 1993.

Los Angeles County filing

The petition says Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner established smaller individual trusts for Nick Reiner and his siblings, and that his trust was meant to pay him half the money at 30 and the rest at 35. It says he never received the money he was due when he turned 30 and that the trust now has at least US$1.5 million in assets.

Nick Reiner says he needs the money to defend himself against charges that he killed his parents. He was arrested hours after Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were stabbed to death in their Brentwood home on Dec. 14, and he has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder.

Paul R. Kanin trustee role

The filing says attorney Paul R. Kanin has overseen the funds since February. It also says the trustees denied access to the money without legal justification, setting up the court fight over whether the trust can be used to pay for his defense while he remains jailed.

Alan Jackson, who represented Reiner, wrote in a declaration with the petition, “my firm stands ready, willing, and able to resume representation of Mr. Reiner.” Jackson also said outside court on the day he left the case that “pursuant to the laws of California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder.”

September pretrial hearing

Reiner is scheduled to return to court for a pretrial hearing in September. He is eligible for the death penalty, but District Attorney Nathan Hochman has said his office has not yet decided whether to seek it. The trust petition places the financing of his defense at the center of the next court stage, before that hearing arrives.