Judge Lets Nick Reiner Draw Up to $300 From Family Trust for Jail Commissary

A Los Angeles judge has authorized the trustee of Nick Reiner’s childhood trust to deposit up to $300 at a time into his jail commissary account. The trustee is the same party trying to stop Reiner from collecting the rest of the money while he awaits trial on charges that he murdered his parents.

The order came after an Oct. 23 hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Lauriann Wright, an attorney for successor trustee Jodi Pais Montgomery, asked that a modest sum be placed in Reiner’s account so he could buy basic items in custody. Wright called the amount “so small and nominal” and “so de minimis” compared with the money in dispute, according to Rolling Stone, and framed it as a question of Reiner’s quality of life during his incarceration.

The judge approved distributions “not to exceed $300.00 at any time, pending the final resolution of the application of the Slayer Statute,” according to a minute order reported by People. Commissary accounts pay for food, hygiene products, writing materials and extra clothing, NBC Los Angeles reported.

The broader dispute is far from settled. The parties are scheduled for mediation on Dec. 16 before retired Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff, with a status conference set for March 17, 2027, according to court records cited in coverage of the hearing.

Reiner, 33, is the middle of Rob and Michele Singer Reiner’s three children. His parents established the trust for him in 1993. His probate lawyers argue its terms are clear: half of the assets were to be distributed when he turned 30, in September 2023, more than two years before his parents were killed. According to court filings, at least $558,000 was due to him at that point. People and Page Six put the trust’s total value at about $1.5 million. Rolling Stone reported a figure of about $1.7 million.

Reiner has said in court papers that he wants the money to pay for a private defense lawyer. In criminal court he is represented by a deputy public defender, NBC Los Angeles reported.

The trustee’s side argues that California’s slayer statute bars the payout. Probate Code section 254 and related provisions prevent a person who “feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent” from receiving property, an interest or a benefit under the decedent’s will or under a trust created by or for the decedent. Wright has also argued that releasing the money before the criminal case ends could cause irreversible harm, and that Reiner’s share should instead pass to his siblings, Jake and Romy Reiner, if the statute applies. The trustees have further argued that Reiner effectively agreed to leave the money in trust when he did not demand it on schedule, NBC reported.

Prosecutors say Reiner fatally stabbed his parents on Dec. 14, 2025, in their home on South Chadbourne Avenue in Brentwood. Rob Reiner, the director of “When Harry Met Sally…,” “A Few Good Men” and “This Is Spinal Tap,” was 78. Michele Singer Reiner, a photographer and producer, was 70. Nick Reiner was arrested that evening in Exposition Park, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

A grand jury indicted him on July 20, and the indictment was unsealed Aug. 12. He pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder with special-circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder by lying in wait, along with an allegation that he personally used a knife. District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced in September that his office would not seek the death penalty, leaving a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole. No trial date has been set. He is being held without bail.

Mark Groubert said the case was “getting weirder,” because the attorney now asking for $300 had earlier argued that the slayer statute kept Reiner from the trust.

Groubert said he had never disputed what the statute says. His objection was about timing. “He has not even gone to trial,” Groubert said. “The statute, as I read it, is for someone convicted of doing these things.” He said that was probably why the court was taking its time, and he stressed that Reiner is presumed innocent.

He was careful to qualify the point. “I could be completely wrong. I’m not a trust attorney,” he said.

The statute’s text is more complicated than a conviction-only rule. Under section 254, a final criminal conviction for a felonious and intentional killing is conclusive in the probate court. When there is no final conviction, the civil court may decide on its own whether the killing was felonious and intentional, applying the lower preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. The party seeking to bar the inheritance carries that burden. California courts have used that provision before, including in litigation tied to the estate of Laci Peterson.

That leaves the probate judge with two options, and the commissary order shows how the court has handled it so far. It can wait for the criminal case to end, or it can hold its own fact-finding on the killings before a jury hears the murder charges. For now, the court has kept the bulk of the money frozen while allowing small payments for Reiner’s needs in custody.

Groubert summed up the bind facing Reiner: he cannot get the money until the murder case is resolved, and he says he needs the money to defend himself in that case. “It’s really this odd catch-22,” he said. He said he plans to follow the trust dispute at least until the criminal trial is over.

Reiner has spoken publicly in the past about his addiction, which began in his teens, and about cycling through treatment programs and periods of homelessness. In 2015 he co-wrote “Being Charlie,” a coming-of-age film directed by his father that explored the relationship between a son and his father.

Rob and Michele Reiner’s other children have said little publicly beyond a statement after the killings. “They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends,” Jake and Romy Reiner said.