In new civil court filings, lawyers for incarcerated Nick Reiner continue to fight for access to his trust money to pay for his criminal defense as he stands accused of killing his parents, Rob and Michele. Reiner, 32, wants to rehire Alan Jackson, who has represented the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Karen Read. The star attorney previously withdrew from the Los Angeles case for lack of funding. (Prosecutors recently stated they wouldn’t seek the death penalty after consulting Reiner’s siblings.)
The trust’s fiduciaries cited a California law known as the “Slayer Statute” as their rationale for not dispersing the money. It prohibits people from receiving an inheritance from those they kill.
Reiner’s team has previously argued that the trustees didn’t release a required portion of the funds when he turned 30, before the murders, and their client has yet to be proven guilty of his double-homicide charge. Now, they point out that “a substantial portion” of the disputed funds in the trust — at least $325,000 — is money from his grandfather, Carl Reiner, who died in 2020.
“Nick is not accused of causing his death,” the new filing notes. “Money that was left to Nick by his grandfather is not money received by Nick from or through his parents. To the extent the funds Nick received from his grandfather are Nick’s personal assets, they remain Nick’s and should be segregated and released from this trust. Even if they were properly held by the trust, the ‘Slayer Statute’ does not supply a basis for withholding them.”
Reiner’s lawyers say that this civil court dispute over nonpayment has so far caused the fiduciaries to pay lawyers more than $250,000 out of his trust to defend themselves. They note that this is itself “nearly half” the size of the age-30 distribution — $558,000 — which Reiner contends he’s overdue. (The trust is valued at $1.6 million.) They’ve told the court that the trustees “have refused to release any money to Nick. He still has not received $1 of his own trust money for basic support and hygiene items while in jail.”
Reiner is suing both the now-former fiduciary in charge of his trust, as well as the current one: Jodi Montgomery, who served as Britney Spears’ conservator from 2019 until it was dissolved in 2021, after Spears’ father was removed from the role.