{"id":434877,"date":"2026-08-17T00:14:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T00:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/434877\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T00:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T00:14:23","slug":"nick-reiner-renews-fight-for-trust-fund-ahead-of-murder-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/434877\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Reiner renews fight for trust fund ahead of murder trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As he awaits trial in connection with the brutal slaying of his parents, Nick Reiner<\/a> is waging war in probate court to wrest control of more than half a million dollars from the trust fund they left him. <\/p>\n

The troubled Hollywood scion is charged with killing his father, celebrated director Rob Reiner, and his mother, storied producer Michele Reiner<\/a>, who were found stabbed to death Dec. 14 in the bedroom of their Brentwood mansion. <\/p>\n

In a brief declaration last week, Reiner reiterated a demand for $558,000 he says he is owed from his trust fund \u2014 money the trust\u2019s managers say they can\u2019t disburse, in part because he\u2019s awaiting trial on murder charges related to the deaths of the trustmakers. <\/p>\n

\u201cNick\u2019s sense of urgency is real, but it did not arise in a vacuum,\u201d lawyers for the former manager of the trust wrote Thursday in a lengthy response to Reiner\u2019s demand. \u201cIt arises from the deaths of his parents, the very settlors of the Trust at issue, and Nick is presently accused of causing those deaths.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a declaration filed the next day, Reiner hit back at claims he\u2019d 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cI did not give my consent to any Trustee of my Trust to withhold, defer, or retain my Age-30 Distribution indefinitely,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cI 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

The trust fund fight began in June<\/a>, 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 fall 2023. <\/p>\n

That petition explicitly tied the demand to Reiner\u2019s looming murder trial, saying he was entitled to \u201cmount his defense with the resources that are lawfully his own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiner\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Reiner also wanted the trust to top up his commissary account, court records show. <\/p>\n

Kanin took over management of the trust this winter in the wake of the slayings. He resigned in July, despite facing threats from Reiner\u2019s probate attorney that she would sue him if he quit the job, according to court records. <\/p>\n

Kanin\u2019s attorneys argue the disbursement delay was caused by incomplete records and due diligence concerns \u2014 worries further snarled by the so-called slayer statute<\/a> barring Californians from inheriting from people they have killed. <\/p>\n

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 dried, attorneys say. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Kanin\u2019s attorneys wrote in Thursday\u2019s filing. \u201cNick cannot show that Mr. Kanin\u2019s conduct \u2014 rather than the unresolved legal question that persists under an entirely different trustee \u2014 caused any delay in his receipt of the distribution.\u201d <\/p>\n

Nearly every state in the U.S. has a version of California\u2019s slayer statute, which effectively disinherits beneficiaries who\u2019ve \u201cfeloniously and intentionally\u201d killed their benefactors. <\/p>\n

Kanin\u2019s lawyers said he had been willing to put money in Reiner\u2019s commissary at Los Angeles\u2019 Twin Towers Correctional Facility, but objected to the $20,000 handover Reiner\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Nor could Reiner credibly claim that he needed the money to live, lawyers wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cNick is incarcerated and his basic needs \u2014 housing, food, medical care \u2014 are being met by the State,\u201d the filing said. \u201cHe is represented in the underlying criminal matter by the Los Angeles County Public Defender\u2019s Office, appointed counsel to whom Nick has a right and who continues to represent him.\u201d <\/p>\n

The trust had no duty to fund Reiner\u2019s defense against charges he killed his parents, the attorneys wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo the extent Nick\u2019s 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\u2019s expense, and the loss of that preference is not a cognizable trust-related harm,\u201d the filing said. <\/p>\n

The fight will return to Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday. No date has been set for the murder trial, though Reiner is expected in court for hearings in September. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he awaits trial in connection with the brutal slaying of his parents, Nick Reiner is waging war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[16054,339,14775,14630,172645,48,52,51,47,50,49,4263,1243,52494,7087,172644,52582,172646,2429,52943,21965],"class_list":["post-434877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-court-record","tag-death","tag-demand","tag-filing","tag-kanin","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-money","tag-murder-trial","tag-nick-reiner","tag-parent","tag-probate-attorney","tag-reiner","tag-slayer-statute","tag-thursday","tag-trust","tag-trust-fund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}