Nick Reiner seeks access to $1.5 million trust amid murder trial

Los Angeles prosecutors have charged Nick Reiner, 32, with the December 2025 stabbing deaths of his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer-producer Michele Singer Reiner. While he remains incarcerated at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Reiner’s civil lawyers are arguing before a probate judge that he is entitled to a distribution from a trust his parents created during their lifetimes. The trust, valued at more than $1.5 million, was supposed to pay Reiner $300 a month and a lump-sum when he turned 30 in 2023. He claims the trustee, Paul Kanin, has withheld the principal and accrued interest, despite Reiner’s assertion that he never consented to such a restriction.

Attorney Alan Jackson, who previously represented Reiner in the criminal case before withdrawing in January, is again representing him in the probate matter. Jackson said outside the courthouse, "> Nick Reiner is very much entitled to his own money, his own funds, and that’s what this process is about." The judge has postponed the hearing to Oct. 23 to allow further review of the arguments.

Reiner’s legal expenses in the trust dispute have already reached $200,000, and he receives $300 a month from the trust for commissary purchases. His criminal defense is now handled by Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene. The probate case raises questions about California’s slayer-statute, which can bar a killer from inheriting from a victim, but Reiner’s attorneys argue the trust distribution was scheduled before his parents’ deaths and therefore does not constitute an inheritance.

The indictment, unsealed in August, adds a special-circumstance allegation that Reiner killed his parents by "lying in wait" and carries potential life-without-parole or death-penalty sentences. A pre-trial hearing in the criminal case is set for Sept. 15.