A California trust fight tests the slayer statute before trial

According to WealthManagement.com, Nick Reiner faces two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances. The charges stem from the December 2025 killings of his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and philanthropist Michele Singer Reiner, at their Brentwood home. He is 32. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody. On a separate track, he is fighting the family trust for the money to pay his lawyers.

The trust fight is a separate file entirely. In court papers covered by WealthManagement.com and obtained by The New York Times, professional fiduciary Jodi Pais Montgomery opposed Reiner's request to draw down an estimated $1.5 million fund his parents set up to finance his defense. Montgomery's attorney, Lauriann Wright, argued that California's slayer statute strips anyone who feloniously and intentionally kills a decedent of any benefit under a trust created by or for that decedent. The money, Wright said, should pass to Reiner's siblings, Romy and Jake Reiner. In language reported by The Hollywood Reporter, she added that releasing it while the criminal case is pending would be irreversible.

Reiner's probate attorney, Anita P. Wu, sees it differently. The slayer statute demands a determination, not a mere accusation, Wu wrote in a statement WealthManagement.com reported; her client has been convicted of nothing. The trust's payment schedule adds another wrinkle. Reiner claims the trust scheduled a payout of roughly $558,000. It was supposed to arrive when he reached thirty. The balance was due five years later. The fiduciaries say he chose to leave that payout in the trust. Reiner says he never received it.

The dispute over whether Reiner waived that payout is the part of the file advisors should carry into client meetings. When a trust runs smoothly, an election to defer a distribution is a tax and growth decision. When a family breaks, the same election becomes evidence. Clients who keep a signed election form, a confirmation email, or a note from the meeting spare their heirs the cost of litigating what actually happened.

The case also exposes the gap between vesting and receipt. Reiner's right to the first distribution matured at thirty, but the money stayed inside the trust. The slayer statute reaches a benefit under a trust, and a benefit that has matured but not been paid is exactly the kind of thing that invites argument. Reiner's assumption — that the money was already his before his parents died — is the same assumption advisors hear from clients who think of trust money as their own. The document, not the beneficiary's sense of ownership, decides what is distributable and when.

Advisors drafting trusts should say plainly whether an unpaid distribution counts as received, and what records prove the intent. They should also write down who decides that a payout has been taken — the trustee, the beneficiary, or both. A professional fiduciary in Montgomery's position must protect the trust against a claim that could be worth the entire fund; a trustee who pays now and loses later has no easy way to recover the money.

The parties are litigating from different starting points. Wu argues the criminal presumption of innocence should control; Wright counters that the statute applies to the trust benefit now, independent of the trial. A court will have to say which side California's slayer statute takes. Sean R. Weissbart, a partner and co-chair of the Tax, Benefits, and Private Client Practice Group at Blank Rome, told WealthManagement.com that Reiner's access may depend on the outcome of the criminal proceeding. If that reading holds, a defense fund built for exactly this moment could stay locked until the moment has passed.

Advisors can turn the Reiner file into a two-question review for every client trust. First, who gets the money if a beneficiary is accused of killing the grantor — does the instrument answer, or does state law default to a slayer statute? Second, what does the file prove about every distribution election? No document prevents every family disaster. The Reiner trust shows what happens when the documents have to handle one anyway.