Facing life behind bars if found guilty for the 2025 killing of his parents, Nick Reiner moved a lot closer today to getting his hands on his trust fund to put on a robust defense.
In a probate hearing Friday before LA Superior Court Judge Ruben Garcia, lawyers for the incarcerated Reiner and the trustee of the $1.5 million fund Rob and Michele Reiner set up in 1993 announced that they have come to a deal that could see the addled 33-year-old accessing up to half of the cash.
“We’re happy to report that at your honor’s direction, we met and conferred about mediation and settlement, and all parties have now scheduled a global mediation,” Reiner’s lawyer Anita Wu told a downtown L.A. courtroom this morning of a mid-December set meeting.
In a somewhat shocking twist, the mediation unveiling comes after months of fighting between now trustee Jodi Montgomery and Reiner over the Nick Reiner Children’s Trust. The planned sit-down, which the absent today Reiner is expected to join virtually, could result in a settlement that would allow the recently re-indicted Being Charlie co-write to rehire the pricey and notoriously effective Alan Jackson as his primary defense lawyer.
Reiner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, along with the special circumstance claim that he stabbed his parents after “lying in wait.” While LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman revealed on September 15 that prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty for Reiner in the double murder matter, there still has not been a trial set for that criminal case.
“We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to reach a resolution with the trustee that is fair and reasonable,” Wu told Deadline Friday. Judge Garcia today put a March 17, 2027 date on the court calendar to go over any possible settlement.
After this morning’s quick-ish court session, which also saw Wu attempting to have $300 allocated from the Trust Fund for her client’s immediate needs behind bars at DTLA’s Twin Towers correctional facility, trustee attorney Lauriann Wright was also upbeat on mediation hopes. Outside the courtroom, the Wright Kim Douglas litigator said with “smart, experienced attorneys” working together on the money matter, she was “optimistic” they could work something out for Reiner.
Wu stressed the urgency from her client’s POV.
“These issues need to get resolved as quickly as possible,” the Brown Neri Smith & Khn partner insisted this morning. “Every week that this trust dispute continues, Nick continues to be deprived of his constitutional right to defend himself using money that is lawfully his to pay for the lawyer he has chosen, which is Alan Jackson,” Wu added. “In the meantime, the money in Nick’s trust continues to be used up by the legal fees of the trustees’ lawyers. It’s Nick’s money that is paying for the lawyers who are trying to keep him from accessing his money. None of that makes any sense, or serves anyone’s interests.”
Specifically, with the arguments ongoing between the attorneys over how much of California’s inheritance denying Slayer Statute pertains to this case, the question for the December 16 mediation meeting is whether the younger Reiner can receive a significant portion of the approximately $550,000 he was apparently eligible for upon turning 30 back in 2023.
Nick Reiner has been custody in downtown L.A. since his arrest December 14 last year soon after the elder Reiners’ maimed bodies were discovered in their Brentwood home. The youngest son of the Few Good Men director and his photographer spouse had been living with his parents for several months. With his history of drug use and other mental health issues certain to play a major role in any criminal proceedings, Reiner entered a not guilty plea to charges including murder in a brisk August 12 hearing.
Right now, with Jackson and his Werksman Jackson & Quinn team having resigned as Reiner’s criminal case advocates on January 7 over money (or the lack there of), the not guilty pleading Reiner is relying on the Public Defender’s Office and the extremely well regarded Kimberly Greene in court.
The next hearing in the criminal case is in January 2027, with a dispute over the unsealing of grand jury testimony in the spotlight.