As he awaits trial in connection with the brutal slaying of his parents, Nick Reiner is waging war in probate court to wrest control of more than half a million dollars from the trust fund they left him.
The troubled Hollywood scion is charged with killing his father, celebrated director Rob Reiner, and his mother, storied producer Michele Reiner, who were found stabbed to death Dec. 14 in the bedroom of their Brentwood mansion.
In a brief declaration last week, Reiner reiterated a demand for $558,000 he says he is owed from his trust fund — money the trust’s managers say they can’t disburse, in part because he’s awaiting trial on murder charges related to the deaths of the trustmakers.
“Nick’s sense of urgency is real, but it did not arise in a vacuum,” lawyers for the former manager of the trust wrote Thursday in a lengthy response to Reiner’s demand. “It arises from the deaths of his parents, the very settlors of the Trust at issue, and Nick is presently accused of causing those deaths.”
In a declaration filed the next day, Reiner hit back at claims he’d told his mother he wanted the cash left in place, doubling down on his insistence the money was illegally withheld and should be handed over immediately, with interest.
“I did not give my consent to any Trustee of my Trust to withhold, defer, or retain my Age-30 Distribution indefinitely,” Reiner said. “I did not ask or authorize my mother to give such consent on my behalf, and I do not recall signing or being asked to sign any document giving that consent.”
The trust fund fight began back in June, when Reiner first petitioned for the money in probate court. In his filings, he accused successor trustee Paul Kanin of failing to pay out cash Reiner claims he was owed as far back as the fall of 2023.
That petition explicitly tied the demand to Reiner’s looming murder trial, saying he was entitled to “mount his defense with the resources that are lawfully his own.”
Reiner’s former defense lawyer, Alan Jackson, quit the case in January. According to the probate filings, he continued to pursue fees he was owed through the trust, and received money in April.
Reiner also wanted the trust to top up his commissary account, court records show.
Kanin took over management of the trust this winter in the wake of the slayings. He resigned in July, despite facing threats from Reiner’s probate attorney that she would sue him if he quit the job, according to court records.
Kanin’s attorneys argue the disbursement delay was caused by incomplete records and due diligence concerns — worries further snarled by the so-called “slayer statute” barring Californians from inheriting from people they’ve killed.
Reiner has pleaded not guilty to the stabbings and remains legally innocent unless he changes his plea or is convicted by a jury. Whether that entitles him to the money is less cut and dry, attorneys say.
“The Slayer Statute question was not a pretext for delay, but a genuine and unresolved legal issue that any prudent trustee administering this Trust would need to address before distributing,” Kanin’s attorneys wrote in Thursday’s filing. “Nick cannot show that Mr. Kanin’s conduct — rather than the unresolved legal question that persists under an entirely different trustee — caused any delay in his receipt of the distribution.”
Nearly every state in the U.S. has a version of California’s slayer statute, which effectively disinherits beneficiaries who’ve “feloniously and intentionally” killed their benefactors.
Kanin’s lawyers said he had been willing to put money in Reiner’s commissary at LA’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility, but objected to the $20,000 handover Reiner’s probate attorney asked for, noting it was 100 times the amount commissary can hold at any time, and that Reiner himself would have limited access to it while in restrictive custody.
Nor could Reiner credibly claim that he needed the money to live, lawyers wrote.
“Nick is incarcerated and his basic needs — housing, food, medical care — are being met by the State,” the filing said. “He is represented in the underlying criminal matter by the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, appointed counsel to whom Nick has a right and who continues to represent him.”
The trust had no duty to fund Reiner’s defense against charges he killed his parents, the attorneys wrote.
“To the extent Nick’s damages theory rests on the unavailability of private counsel of his choosing, that theory fails as a matter of law: a criminal defendant has no entitlement to the specific private counsel of his choice at the trust’s expense, and the loss of that preference is not a cognizable trust-related harm,” the filing said.
The fight will return to Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday. No date has yet been set for the murder trial, though Reiner is expected back in court for hearings in September.
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