It’s the latest grim chapter in a truly harrowing Hollywood saga. In December last year, actor and director Rob Reiner, the man behind beloved films such as When Harry Met Sally, Stand By Me and The Princess Bride, and his wife Michele, a respected photographer and producer, were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home. Soon after, the couple’s youngest son Nick was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He has since pleaded not guilty and could face either life in prison without parole or the death penalty should he be convicted, although the District Attorney’s office has not yet decided whether to seek this. Now the 32-year-old, who co-wrote his father’s 2015 film Being Charlie based on his experiences of drug addiction, rehab stints and mental health struggles, is vying to gain access to the estimated $1.5m trust fund set up by his parents – in order to pay for a defence lawyer to argue against the charges that he killed them. The Nick Reiner Children’s Trust was established in 1993 and is separate to the larger family trust that controls the Reiner estate; it’s thought that Rob and Michele’s other children, Jake, 35, and Romy, 28, have similar trusts, too. On Monday, Nick’s lawyers filed a petition seeking to gain access to the trust so that he can fund his defence and pay for basic expenses while he remains in custody at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, where he has been held since his arrest last year. Nick Reiner’s lawyers say he is ‘entitled to mount his defence with the resources that are lawfully his own’ (Getty)In the document, attorneys Anita Wu and Geoffrey Neri wrote that Nick is “devastated” by the death of his parents, “but the facts about what did and did not happen to them are not at issue in this trust litigation”. They argued that “like anyone accused of a crime”, their client is “presumed innocent” – and therefore he is “entitled to mount his defence with the resources that are lawfully his own”. They claim that Nick, who is thought to have been living at a guesthouse on his parents’ Brentwood property at the time of their deaths, is “presently unable to fund” his criminal case, and that “every additional week of delay is a week in which the counsel of his choice cannot investigate or prepare on his behalf – prejudice to his defence that cannot be undone”. This, his lawyers believe, is causing “irreparable” harm, which “grows with every day the Trustee withholds funds that are already Nick’s”. They have also claimed that the current trustee, attorney Paul Kanin, “continues to deplete Nick’s funds by paying lawyers to raise one reason after another for holding on to Nick’s money for another two years, all of which violate the plain terms of the Trust”. They have been met, they claim, by a “shifting series of excuses and justifications” as to why Nick cannot access this money. Kanin was appointed in February of this year, but is stepping down this month; he will be replaced by Jodi Montgomery, a professional fiduciary (someone who is hired to manage financial affairs and estates on behalf of others, and who is under a legal and ethical obligation to act in their best interests). If Montgomery’s name sounds familiar to you, that might be because she was previously involved in one of the biggest celebrity conservatorship cases of recent years. In 2019, she was appointed as a temporary conservator for Britney Spears, taking over after the singer’s father, Jamie, stepped down from the role over health issues, before the conservatorship was terminated in 2021; she has been described as a “tireless advocate” for the star. Nick, pictured with Michele and Rob in 2013, is accused of killing his parents and could face the death penalty if convicted (Getty)Nick’s trust holds “more than $1.5m” intended for his “sole benefit” – but he has allegedly not been told of the exact amount it contains. According to its terms, Nick’s attorneys say, he should have received half of the money (apparently around $750,000) upon his 30th birthday back in 2023, but did not do so; it’s not clear exactly why this didn’t happen. He should also receive the remainder of this sum when he turns 35. “These are not estate assets, and Nick does not seek them from his parents’ estate,” his attorneys state. “They are his own funds”. The mental health of the youngest Reiner child has been an ongoing point of speculation ever since this horrifying story broke in December; The New York Times has reported that he was placed in a mental health conservatorship in 2020, with a clerk for the Los Angeles Superior Court also confirming that the arrangement ended a year later in 2021.His lawyers now claim that the trustees won’t release the funds to Nick as they have “unresolved concerns” about his ability “to make sound decisions and adequately protect his own interests”. Indeed, in a letter included in the legal filing, Stefanie Cutler, an attorney for Kanin, said that she does “not agree that an immediate outright distribution” of this money would be “appropriate” given these concerns. Indeed, any future legal row may focus on a few lines in the original 1993 document, which states that “a person who shall be incapacitated so as to make it impossible or improbable for that person to exercise consistently good judgement” over the trust may be deemed “incompetent” and unable to manage it. Defence attorney Alan Jackson previously stepped down from the case, citing circumstances that made it ‘impossible’ to represent Nick (Getty)As for the rejoinder from his attorneys? They argue that there has been “no judicial declaration that Nick is incompetent”, a development that would require a written statement from two licensed doctors, and therefore these “concerns” are not sufficient to stop him from accessing the money. Nick’s lawyers are public defenders who joined his case back in January after Alan Jackson, the high-profile lawyer he had previously hired to represent him, withdrew, citing circumstances that “made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick”. Jackson, who has previously defended the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, kept quiet about the specifics of his decision to step back from the case, but now, according to the petition, it appears that Nick could not afford to retain a top attorney; his siblings Jake and Romy, the filing shows, had initially agreed to pay for the lawyer, but later changed their minds. But according to the petition, Jackson would in fact be prepared to return as Nick’s defence. “My firm stands ready, willing and able to resume representation of Mr Reiner in the criminal matter,” he said, adding that his firm is open to “reasonable alternatives” to his original fee, including changes to the payment structure or plan, should this help Nick, who is set to return to court for a pretrial hearing in September. This estate dispute adds a further layer of complexity to an already agonising case. In a Substack post shared earlier this year, eldest Reiner son Jake wrote that “any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the centre of it”. For him, he said, the whole ordeal has been akin to a “living nightmare” – and one that seems unlikely to come to an end any time soon.