Nick Reiner, the son of famed director Rob Reiner who is now charged with his murder, has filed a petition for his inheritance.
The 32-year-old made the shocking demand in court documents on Monday, requesting the money his parents, Rob and Michele, set aside in a trust for him.
Nick claims in the petition obtained by the Daily Mail that he was supposed to receive half of the $1.5 million in his trust when he turned 30, with the other half allocated when he turns 35.
But, he alleges, the current trustee – identified as Paul Kanin – ‘has offered a shifting series of excuses and justifications’ for not turning over the funds, including ‘unsubstantiated “concerns” about Nick’s so-called competence to “manage a trust”‘ despite the terms his parents set up.
When he then tried to hire famed defense lawyer Alan Jackson to help him fight the murder charges, Nick said the trustee refused to pay Jackson – prompting the lawyer to withdraw from the case and forcing Nick to turn to a public defender instead.
According to the petition, Nick told the trustee that ‘time is of the essence’ and explained that he needed Jackson to avoid ‘further jeopardizing my defense in the criminal matter’ as he has no other source of funding for his legal bills or basic supplies like soap and socks while behind bars.
‘Every additional week of delay is a week in which the counsel of his choice cannot investigate or prepare on his behalf – prejudice to his defense that cannot be undone,’ Nick’s lawyers claim.
‘The harm is irreparable and it grows with each day the Trustee withholds funds that are already Nick’s.
Nick Reiner, the son of famed director Rob Reiner who is now charged with his murder, has filed a petition for his portion of his inheritance. He is pictured in court
Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found stabbed to death just hours before Nick was arrested and held without bail
Prosecutors say that Nick killed his parents at their $13.5 million home in upscale Brentwood, Los Angeles on December 14
‘In the meantime, for reasons unknown to Petitioner, the Trustee continues to deplete Nick’s funds by paying lawyers to raise one reason after another for holding on to Nick’s money for another two years, all of which violate the plain terms of the Trust.’
Nick is now seeking accounting and damages from the trustee.
He has previously been represented by Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene who entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to six felony charges, two of first degree murder, two of special circumstances involving multiple murder and two counts of special circumstances using a deadly weapon, a knife.
Prosecutors say that Nick killed his parents at their $13.5 million home in upscale Brentwood, Los Angeles on December 14, fatally stabbing them before fleeing the scene.
Nick, who has a long history of mental health and substance abuse issues issues, had earlier been seen having a loud argument with his father at a holiday party thrown by TV’s Conan O’Brien hours before his parents’ bodies were found, reportedly by his younger sister Romy.
Nathan Hochman, the LA District attorney, has said that the death penalty is on the table for Reiner if he is convicted.
‘This case is a death penalty eligible case.’ he declared after an earlier hearing. ‘Along those lines we take the process in which we determine whether or not the death penalty should be sought extremely seriously. That goes through a very rigorous process.
‘We will be looking at all mitigating and aggravating circumstances, and we have invited defense council to present to us both in writing and in a pleading, any arguments they would like to make in consideration going forward or not going forward with the death penalty. So that is an ongoing process.’
Nick argues in his petition he had tried to hire famed defense lawyer Alan Jackson to represent him at his murder trial using his share of the trust, but the trustee would not pay Jackson – leaving him to be represented by public defender Kimberly Green (pictured)
Nick (center) claims his siblings, Romy and Jake, supported his effort to use the trust fund to pay for Jackson
In a heart-wrenching essay in April, Nick’s older brother Jake shared his horror at finding out that his beloved parents – who were married for 36 years – had been murdered and that his younger brother Nick was charged with their slayings.
He described how his sister Romy, 28, gave him the terrible news, which he said was ‘too devastating to comprehend.’
‘The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened,’ he recounted.
‘I was robbed of so many things that day,’ Jake, 34, continued. ‘My parents won’t be at my wedding, they won’t get to hold their future grandchild, and they won’t get to see me have the successful career I’m still seeking. It simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me.’
As he was still reeling from the news of his parents’ deaths, Jake said he was horrified to then learn that his brother Nick was the alleged murderer.
‘We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable,’ he wrote.
‘Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it. It’s almost too impossible to process.’
In a blog post this week Nick’s older brother Jake, center, shared his horror at finding out that his beloved parents, left, had been murdered
‘Every day since then has been horrendous,’ he continued. ‘Every meeting we take, every person we talk to, every tear we shed, every movement we make is connected to our parents being murdered.’
‘When you are not living through a tragedy the specific way Romy and I are, it’s hard to wrap your head around just how horrific this has been,’ Jake explained.
‘Because they weren’t your parents, it might be easier to move forward or even forget for a moment about what happened that day,’ he wrote. ‘But for us, it’s every single day.’
Jake also paid touching tributes to his parents, saying that they were ‘the center of my life.’
‘They are my guiding lights, the foundation of who I am as a human being, and the most giving people I have ever known,’ he wrote.
‘A lot of people don’t have the luxury of having the best parents, the best mom, or the best dad, but I did. The love they have for me, my brother, and my sister is truly unconditional.
‘And the love they have for each other in their marriage is something I always looked up to as the standard of what a successful relationship looks like.’
Jake wrote of the anguish he has endured since the murders of his Hollywood legend father and mother Michele in December
While his famous father was a Hollywood legend, Jake described his mother, Michele, as ‘the engine, the backbone, and the heart of our entire family.’
‘She had a passion for life most people wish they could attain.’
He wrote of watching musicals with his mother and going to baseball games with his father, and acknowledged his privileged upbringing as the son of celebrities.
‘It’s not lost on me that I was able to have these incredible experiences, that most people don’t get to have, because of who my parents were,’ he wrote.
‘But I would trade every Dodger game, every Broadway show, every vacation, if I could just spend just one more hour talking to them and to say goodbye.’
