Nick Reiner‘s battle to avoid life in prison without parole or even the death penalty if found guilty of the bloody 2025 killing of his parents may hinge on a decision he allegedly made or didn’t make nearly three years ago.
Later this morning in downtown L.A., lawyers for the youngest son of the late Rob Reiner and Michele Singer will clash with attorneys for the trustee in charge of the now over $1.6 million trust that the Few Good Men director and his spouse set up over 30 years ago for their now incarcerated offspring.
At the heart of the highly charged matter, there will be two key components of Monday’s session in civil court before L.A. Superior Court Judge Ruben Garcia. One, whether or not 32-year-old Reiner knew he was eligible for over $550,000 of his December 2, 1993-created “children’s trust” when he turned 30 on September 14, 2023. Two, why that money was not disbursed by a previous trustee to the addiction- addled Reiner at that time.
Advocates for Reiner, who is currently represented by a public defender, insist the recently re-indicted Being Charlie co-writer immediately needs access to some of that trust fund money to muster a real fight with a top tier defense team for his innocence, and perhaps life. That was made all the more apparent when DA Nathan Hochman‘s office made public on August 12 a special-circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait added to the charges already against Reiner.
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On the other side, while stating “the Trustee does not contend that Nick is or is not disqualified, and she presumes him innocent,” an ex-Britney Spears trustee who recently has been put in charge of Reiner’s trust, says records show Reiner tuned down the initial $558,000 due to him three years ago — and that ship has sailed.
In fact, while attorneys for trustee Jodi Montgomery do “not dispute that an actual controversy exists regarding the construction of the Trust and that declaratory relief is an appropriate vehicle to resolve it,” they argue based on the way the parameters and obligations of the trust, hen is not entitled to a dime until he’s 35 years old. Invoking California’s Slayer Statute, Montgomery and her lawyers postulate that Nick Reiner may never get that trust money, depending on how his criminal case ends up. If he were to die, the funds would go to his brother and sister.
As made evident in his June petition for the money and a declaration filed in the LASC docket on August 14, Nick Reiner says he has a very different notion of what went down in 2023 – – or not.
“I relied on the Trustees of my Trust to administer it fairly, for my benefit, and in accordance with its terms,” Reiner swears in the August 13 declaration.
“In the Successor Trustee’s recent filings, she estimates that at least $558,000 became due and payable to me when I turned 30 years old – but she states that I ‘chose to’ leave it in the Trust as ‘Trust property’ so it will continue to be withheld from me now, and that I also will not receive any accrued interest or income because of my ‘consent,’” the Anita Wu-represented Reiner adds.
Citing a previous trustee, he goes on to state: “However, to the best of my recollection, Mr. Fishburn never told me that this amount was owed to me; he never told me that he was trying to give me this money; he never asked me where I wanted it to be transferred; he never asked me for my consent to keep it as Trust property; and he never told me I would not receive any of the interest or income from the time of my 30th birthday.”
Now, take a second to take that “to the best of my recollection” in.
Pretty standard speak for a declaration. However, in this very sad case, words that may take on a greater meaning when Reiner’s ongoing condition, medications and more are factored in by a court and L.A. County prosecutors.
The elder Reiners were discovered dead in their Brentwood home on December 14 by their youngest daughter. Nick Reiner was picked up and arrested by the LAPD a few hours later, miles and miles away from his parents’ home. He had been living with the 78-year-old All in the Family alum and his 70-year-old photographer spouse for several reportedly uneasy weeks at the time of their deaths.
Back into the trust dispute, Montgomery’s cross-petition of last week sees the June 11 appointed trustee painting a very different and specific picture of what went down almost three years ago when the elder Reiners were still alive.
“Petitioner is informed and believes, based on information conveyed by prior trustee Matthew Fishburn, that Settlor Michele Singer Reiner advised him that Nick was aware he could take his Age 30 Distribution from the Trust when he turned thirty, and that Nick instead let those funds remain in the Trust — thereby consenting …to the Trustee electing to keep the distribution in the Trust until he desired it,” the Wright Kim Douglas lawyers for the self-described professional fiduciary note. “The Age 30 Distribution accordingly never left the Trust and remained Trust property under continued administration. Nick did not demand the distribution until his counsel did so in early April 2026.”
At one point requiring a $50,000 a month security detail over the threats against her, Montgomery was the final over-seer of sorts in “Toxic” star Spears’ intensely restrictive conservatorship. In late 2021, state Judge Brenda Penny pulled the plug on the 13-year conservatorship.
“There is also something deeply wrong with this picture,” Wu told Deadline Sunday.
“The trustees and their lawyers are spending an extraordinary amount of time preparing hundreds of pages of ever-changing arguments, all to keep money from the very person whose interests they’re legally required to protect – and they’re paying themselves from Nick’s trust to do it,” the lawyer explained. “Meanwhile, Nick can’t access any of his own money, even to pay for his criminal defense.”
“The new trustee has taken the position that she can’t even release $50 to his commissary account – money for basic hygiene items like shampoo – unless the court orders otherwise,” Brown Neri Smith & Khan’s Wu says. “None of this serves Nick’s interests. A trustee is supposed to serve the interests of the beneficiary, not use the beneficiary’s own money to litigate against him.”
Almost no one anticipates Judge Garcia will make a decision on the civil petitions today, I’m told.
With a September 15 hearing in Reiner’s criminal case on the calendar, and an October 23 session in the struggle over the trust money penciled in, both sides in the trust matter are open to mediation, sources say. Whether or not they can, to quote the Good Book, “come now, and let us reason together” is a whole other matter. There is no trial date set yet in Reiner’s criminal case.
Adding a further wrinkle to all this trust stuff, it turns out Montgomery’s immediate predecessor as trustee had paid out a “discretionary distribution” of legal fees to firm Werksman Jackson & Quinn for Reiner’s defense earlier this year.
Nick Kanin, who is named as a defendant in Reiner’s petition of earlier this summer, says in his own filing last week that “a check in the amount of WJQ’s fees was thereafter delivered to RCB’s office and forwarded to WJQ, with the parties coordinating delivery logistics between April 29 and April 30, 2026.”
Taking over as the Reiner fund trustee from Matthew Fishburn soon after Rob and Michele Reiner’s horrific bludgeoning last December, Kanin served just 15 whirlwind weeks in the role before handing it over to Montgomery.
Somewhat in tandem, Alan Jackson served as Reiner’s main defense lawyer when the two first-degree murder charges first came down late last year. After a single December 17 court appearance and no plea by Reiner, the take-no-prisoners Jackson dramatically announced at a January 7 session he and his firm were withdrawing from the case.
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Later that same day, Jackson said outside DTLA’s Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, that the move to step aside was due to “circumstances beyond our control but more importantly circumstances beyond Nick’s control have dictated that sadly it’s made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick.”
The widely respected Kimberly Greene of the public defenders’ office took over Reiner’s case that day as well.
Emphatic that Reiner was not guilty of the charges against him, Jackson added to assembled journalists and onlookers” “I‘m legally and I’m ethically prohibited from explaining all the reasons why, I know that’s a question on everybody’s mind.”
It was clear to almost all it was about money. Jackson indicated as much in subsequent public statements. Reiner himself in a subsequent court filing said Jackson’s departure from his defense occurred because “funding did not materialize.”
Jackson in a June interview with TMZ laid it out that “absolutely, me and my entire team are ready, willing and able to step right back in and start securing his defense” if the money is there to pay them.
Now, the effort to re-retain Jackson and his firm has come back to getting that money — as it always does.
