Originally appeared on E! Online.
Nick Reiner is getting a new team.
During an appearance in a Los Angeles courtroom Jan. 7, the 32-year-old’s lawyer Alan Jackson, announced he has withdrawn from the case, according to an MS NOW reporter in the courtroom, leaving Nick Reiner’s case in the hands of a public defender for the time being.
The change in counsel means that Nick Reiner’s plea was not entered for the two charges of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders following the deaths of his parents Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner. His arraignment has been rescheduled for Feb. 23.
Following the news, Nick Reiner’s family told the New York Times in a statement, “They have the utmost trust in the legal process and will not comment further on matters related to the legal proceedings.”
Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in their Los Angeles home on the afternoon of Dec. 14. About six hours later, police arrested Nick Reiner near the University of Southern California and booked him on suspicion of their murders.
PHOTOS: Rob Reiner Dead: Celebrities Pay Tribute
Nick Reiner was charged Dec. 16, with the LA County District Attorney’s Office announcing at the time that the screenwriter would also face a “special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, that being a knife” on the couple.
The death of the “When Harry Met Sally” director and his wife of 36 years has sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with Jane Fonda sharing that she had seen the pair the night before their bodies were found.
“I saw them night before last looking healthy and happy,” Fonda wrote on Instagram Dec. 15. “I am reeling with grief. Stunned.”
Likewise, Rob Reiner’s daughter Tracy Reiner — who he adopted during his marriage to late ex-wife Penny Marshall — was also left speechless by the tragedy.
“I came from the greatest family ever,” she told NBC News. “I don’t know what to say. I’m in shock.”
Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner are also survived by their kids Jake Reiner, 34, and Romy Reiner, 27.
In the weeks leading up to Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner’s deaths, the couple had a loving relationship with Nick Reiner, according to cinematographer Barry Markowitz, a friend who stayed with the family at their residence in November.
“We watched a movie and a basketball game. Played with the dogs. Family time. One big love fest,” Markowitz told Page Six in an interview published Dec. 16, adding that Nick Reiner appeared to be “on the upswing” following his yearslong battle with drug addiction.
“He looked great,” the filmmaker said. “He helped out, he took out the garbage, he watched TV, he washed dishes.”
As Markowitz noted, “He was just normal in that sense.”
But Nick Reiner has been candid about his challenging past, including — by his estimation — 18 stints in rehab from the ages of 14 and 19. He explained that the pressure of being in a famous family contributed to the “noise” that led him down the path of substance abuse.
“For everyone, it’s different. For me, the noise was basically living in the family that I live in and catching heat for that sort of stuff,” Nick Reiner told Entertainment Tonight in 2016. “I was an emotional kid who had problems and I just was not so fond of myself.”
He eventually got clean after feeling “bored” with his time in rehab.
“I got just sick of it,” he continued. “I was like, ‘I’m sick of this cycle, this using drugs, it being so temporary the fix, then going back into a place for months on end, then getting out and just, rinse, wash, repeat.'”
Nick Reiner — who recruited his dad to direct his 2015 movie “Being Charlie,” inspired by his own addiction battle — later relapsed, sharing that he had a “cocaine heart attack” around 2017 after going “back on dope.”
“I linked up with this old dealer,” he shared on the “Dopey” podcast in 2018. “And that turned into me hanging out with him for like three weeks doing heroin.”
PHOTOS: Rob Reiner, Michele Singer Reiner
