Nick Reiner was fighting for access to his own trust fund to pay for a criminal defense team. The fiduciary standing in his way had a name pop culture watchers already knew.
Reiner, the 32-year-old son of filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Singer, was accused of killing both parents at their Brentwood home on December 14. Opposing him was professional fiduciary Jodi Montgomery, a name familiar from Britney Spears‘ conservatorship.
Nick Reiner’s trust is overseen by a trustee who previously worked for Britney Spears
Montgomery took charge of the Reiner trust on June 11, according to Deadline, after years spent handling another famous client. She served as the last fiduciary over Spears’ affairs before Judge Brenda Penny dissolved the 13-year conservatorship in late 2021. Threats during that stretch grew serious enough to warrant a $50,000-a-month security detail.
Her attorneys argued that Reiner already passed on roughly $558,000 when he turned 30 on September 14, 2023. Under the terms of the trust his parents created in 1993, they said he could not claim another dollar until he turned 35.
They also invoked California’s slayer statute, which could keep the money away from him for good depending on how the murder case ended. If he were to die, his brother and sister would inherit the fund instead. The same filings noted that the trustee presumed him innocent and took no position on his eligibility.
Reiner told the court a very different story. In a sworn declaration, he said prior trustee Matthew Fishburn never raised the subject with him at all. Nobody explained how to claim the distribution or asked whether he wanted it left in place. Montgomery’s cross-petition painted the opposite picture, saying Michele Singer Reiner told Fishburn that her son knew about the age-30 payout and simply let it sit.
His attorney, Anita Wu, put it more bluntly. She argued that the trustees were billing the trust to fight the very person it existed to protect. Meanwhile, Reiner could not touch “any of his own money, even to pay for his criminal defense.” Wu added that the new trustee refused to release even $50 for commissary hygiene items without a court order.
Few expected Judge Ruben Garcia to rule on the civil petitions Monday. Sources said both sides remained open to mediation. The trust fight returns to court on October 23, while Reiner’s criminal case has a September 15 hearing and no trial date.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK NICK SHOULD BE ABLE TO USE HIS TRUST TO PAY FOR HIS DEFENSE?
