The trustee overseeing Nick Reiner's $1.5 million inheritance has moved to block his access to the money, citing a California law that bars anyone who kills a person from profiting through that person's estate, a direct challenge to Reiner's ability to fund his own murder defense.
Court documents filed this week show professional fiduciary Jodi Pais Montgomery formally opposed Reiner's petition to tap his trust fund, invoking California Probate Code Section 250, the state's so-called slayer statute. The law strips inheritance rights from any person who "feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent." Nick Reiner, 32, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Reiner, at their Brentwood, California, home in December 2025.
The filing, first reported by Page Six, sets up a pointed legal collision: a defendant who says he needs his own money to fight for his freedom, and a trustee who says the law forbids handing it over to someone charged with the very act that created the inheritance.
Lauriann Wright, the attorney representing Montgomery, argued in the filing that no carve-out exists in California law for the situation Reiner describes. Wright wrote that releasing trust funds to a defendant charged with murdering the trust's creators would set a precedent the court could not undo.
"California has enacted no exception permitting a killer's inheritance to be used for criminal defense costs."
Wright warned that any distribution now would be "irreversible", meaning if Reiner is ultimately convicted, the money would already be gone. Under the slayer statute, a conviction would redirect Nick's share of the trust to his siblings, Romy and Jake Reiner.
Nick Reiner's attorney, Anita P. Wu, pushed back in a statement to the New York Times, drawing a hard line between accusation and adjudication.
"The slayer statute requires a determination, not a mere accusation. Nick is presumed innocent and has been convicted of nothing."
Wu's argument rests on a straightforward constitutional principle: the slayer statute, by its own terms, applies to someone who has killed, not someone who has been charged. Whether a court will draw that distinction before trial remains an open question.
The battle over the $1.5 million trust is not new. Nick Reiner filed a petition in June demanding access to the fund, arguing he needed the money for legal fees and commissary items while jailed. The trust, described in court papers as irrevocable, was set up by his parents. Half was supposed to be distributed when Nick turned 30 in 2023. The other half was scheduled for 2028, when he turns 35. Neither payment was made.
Before Montgomery took over as fiduciary, a previous trustee, lawyer Paul Kanin, had already refused to release the funds. Fox News reported that Kanin cited concerns about Nick's ability to make sound financial decisions and exercise "consistently good judgment." Nick's legal team countered that no court or medical professional had ever declared him incompetent, and that California law presumes adult competence unless proven otherwise.
The practical fallout was immediate. High-profile criminal defense attorney Alan Jackson, who had already begun working on the case, withdrew after the trustee refused to release funds to pay him. Nick Reiner was left relying on a court-appointed public defender, a significant downgrade in a capital-eligible case.
His lawyers warned at the time that every week of delay was compounding the damage. The New York Post reported their argument that "the harm is irreparable and it grows with each day the Trustee withholds funds that are already Nick's."
Nick Reiner has also faced discipline for a verbal outburst in jail while awaiting trial, one indication of the pressure building on a defendant who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and now sits without the legal representation he chose.
The stakes of the trust fight grew sharper after a Los Angeles County grand jury indicted Nick Reiner on murder charges on July 20, with the indictment unsealed in August. The indictment included a "lying in wait" allegation, meaning prosecutors allege Reiner planned and ambushed his parents rather than acting in a sudden rage. That allegation makes him eligible for the death penalty, though the Washington Examiner reported that prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek it.
Nick Reiner has pleaded not guilty. He was arrested in December 2025, hours after Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Reiner, 70, were found dead. Death certificates released later that month stated both died within "minutes" of receiving "multiple sharp force injuries." The cause was listed as "knife, by another."
The indictment route also allowed prosecutors to bypass a public preliminary hearing, keeping much of the evidence out of public view for now.
If the slayer statute holds, the $1.5 million would not vanish. It would transfer to Nick's sister Romy and brother Jake. Both have stayed largely out of public view since their parents' deaths, though Jake Reiner stepped into public roughly six months after the killings as the murder case ground forward.
Their father's legacy, meanwhile, has continued to receive recognition. Rob Reiner received a posthumous Emmy nomination months after his death, a reminder that the family name still carries weight in the industry even as the criminal case dominates headlines.
The trust dispute now sits before a judge whose ruling will shape the rest of the case. If Nick Reiner cannot access the fund, he faces a first-degree murder trial, potentially a capital trial, with a public defender instead of the private counsel he selected. If the court releases the money and he is later convicted, the funds are gone, and the statute's purpose is defeated.
No ruling date has been announced. The criminal case carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, or death.
The law is blunt for a reason. Society does not let people profit from the act they are accused of committing, and courts should not be in a hurry to hand over the proceeds before the jury has spoken.
