Nick Reiner Faces New Charges In Killing Of Rob Reiner & Michelle Reiner; No Death Penalty Decision Yet, D.A. Says

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office still hasn’t decided if it will seek the death penalty against Nick Reiner for the alleged murder of his parents on the first day of Hanukkah last year. However, Nathan Hochman’s team certainly upped the ante Wednesday with a new indictment and new charges against the youngest son of A Few Good Men director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.

In custody in DTLA since his arrest on December 14 soon after his parents’ bludgeoned bodies were discovered in their Brentwood home, the Being Charlie co-writer has had a special-circumstance allegation of murder while
lying in wait added to the charges against him. In a quick hearing Wednesday, the 32-year-old Reiner, who has had a rocky road in L.A. County lockup the past few months, entered a not guilty plea alongside his public defenders.

The newly unsealed July 20 indictment (read it here) asserts that Reiner’s alleged attack on his “particularly vulnerable” parents “involved great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm, or other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness, or callousness.”

“This was a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing,” D.A. Hochman said Wednesday after the indictment hit the docket and the short hearing. “The indictment unsealed today also adds a special circumstance allegation that the defendant committed the murders by means of lying in wait. We hope that by having a grand jury return an indictment in this case it will bring us one step closer to a trial and achieving justice.”

Held without bail, Reiner is looking at life without parole or death by injection if found guilty. No motive for the killings has yet to be made public — though a lot of speculation about Nick Reiner’s years of addiction has seeped into the discourse around the tragedy.

In the latest indictment of July 20, which replaces the previous one of December 15, Reiner faces two counts of murder with the special-circumstance allegations of multiple murders in the unsealed document. In addition to the new charge of lying in wait, there is also another special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife,” according to prosecutors.

Already scheduled to show up on August 17 in L.A. Superior Court for a civil hearing on getting access to trust fund cash to use for his defense, Reiner also will appear at downtown’s Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center on September 15 for a long-set pretrial hearing. No actual trial date has been set.

As one of the many loving tributes Rob Reiner has received since his passing, the former All in the Family star got a posthumous Emmy nomination in July for Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. Reiner played restaurant franchiser Albert Schnur in Season 4 of FX’s The Bear. The Primetime Emmys air live on September 14 on NBC – – that’s the day before the younger Reiner’s criminal hearing.