(LOS ANGELES) — Nick Reiner says he needs money from his trust fund to help pay for his defense team, specifically to rehire famed defense attorney Alan Jackson, according to a new court filing. The petition alleges that Reiner is entitled to the funds in his trust, which were required to be released to him when he turned 30, something he claims did not happen.

Reiner, 32, was charged with the murders of his parents, renowned director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Reiner, in December.

Reiner was previously represented by Jackson, but Jackson abruptly resigned from the case in January for reasons that were not shared at the time.

The petition alleges Reiner’s siblings, Jake and Romy Reiner, had initially agreed to pay Jackson’s fees, but in January, “Nick learned that Jackson and his firm were forced to withdraw because the anticipated funding did not materialize, and the Public Defender was appointed to take over Nick’s defense.”

It is not known why funding from Reiner’s siblings was unavailable.

“Since then, Nick has repeatedly asked that Jackson’s firm resume its representation if funds become available,” the petition states, adding that Jackson “has reaffirmed not only that he ‘stands ready, willing, and able to resume [his] representation,’ but that he is ‘committed to representing’ Nick and ‘willing to consider reasonable alternatives to the original fee arrangement.'”

“These are not estate assets, and Nick does not seek them from his parents’ estate,” the petition adds. “They are his own funds. Nick has no other means — to pay for his legal expenses, or for his basic support needs while incarcerated.”

The petition specifically notes that the trust in question was created for Reiner by his parents “more than 30 years ago, when Nick was an infant,” and that similar “children’s” trusts were also created for his siblings.

The petition argues that these children’s trusts were “funded independently” of the larger family trusts that hold the Reiner family’s estate, and that the terms of the independent trusts required one half to be paid out when the beneficiary turned 30, with the other half disbursed when they turned 35.

“Nick turned 30 on September 14, 2023 — more than two and a half years ago — at which point his right to one-half of the Trust vested and became due to him as a matter of right. But he did not receive his Mandatory Age-30 Distribution then, and he has not received it since,” the petition alleges.

The petition claims the “Current Trustee” overseeing Reiner’s independent trust “has offered a shifting series of excuses and justifications, none of which can be reconciled with the Trust’s plain terms — most recently, unsubstantiated ‘concerns’ about Nick’s so-called competence to ‘manage a trust.'”

It adds, “Nick loved his parents, and he is devastated by their deaths. But the facts about what did and did not happen to them are not at issue in this Trust litigation.”

Jackson told reporters in January that he “had to withdraw as Nick Reiner’s counsel” due to “circumstances beyond our control, but more importantly, circumstances beyond Nick’s control.”

“Sadly, it’s made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick,” Jackson said at the time.

Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home on Dec. 14, 2025. The night before their deaths, Nick Reiner — who had been living on his parents’ property at the time — got into an argument with Rob Reiner at a holiday party and was seen acting strangely, sources told ABC News in December.

Nick Reiner was taken into custody in downtown Los Angeles hours after the bodies were discovered. He was subsequently charged with two counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of multiple murders, to which he pleaded not guilty.

He remains in jail on no bail. His is scheduled to appear in court for a pretrial hearing in September.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the description of the trust fund in question, which is an individual “children’s” trust and not a family trust.

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(NEW YORK) — The House Oversight Committee is conducting a closed-door interview Tuesday with a woman so ubiquitous in Jeffrey Epstein’s life that a search for her name in the Justice Department’s Epstein files returns more than 160,000 results.

Lesley Groff worked as an executive secretary to Epstein in New York for more than 18 years, and was once described by her boss as an “extension of my brain.”

Among her job requirements were scheduling Epstein’s frequent meetings with celebrities, scientists and politicians, booking Epstein’s daily massage appointments when he was in New York, and arranging travel for women linked to Epstein. She was one of four women listed as potential co-conspirators in Epstein’s controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2007.

According to federal prosecutors, “numerous victims [of Epstein] had indicated that she was responsible for scheduling massages during which they were sexually abused.”

Groff is appearing as part of the committee’s ongoing inquiry into the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein and his alleged co-conspirators, which to date has included interviews with former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Epstein’s longtime personal assistant Sarah Kellen, and a prison guard who was on duty the night Epstein died in his jail cell.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer said on his way in Tuesday morning that he believes Groff has “information that is very valuable to our investigation.”

“Hopefully, we’ll learn more today,” Comer said.

The chairman reiterated that the committee is conducting “the most thorough investigation ever of Epstein.”

“We’re bringing in the most important people in the whole Epstein criminal enterprise that are still alive, and hopefully we’ll get the truth to the American people. If there’s an opportunity for accountability, we sure want to see that happen,” he said.

Groff did not speak to reporters upon her arrival.

Last September at a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol, Epstein survivor Marina Lacerda specifically called out Groff, alleging that Groff had called her so many times to go to Epstein’s place for a massage that she dropped out of high school before the ninth grade.

Lacerda — who was one of the key witnesses that led to Epstein’s 2019 indictment for child sex trafficking — told ABC News in an interview this week that Groff was the conduit to Epstein.

“Anything that had to do with Jeffrey Epstein, ” Lacerda told ABC News in an interview, “had to go through Lesley Groff.”   

Through her attorneys, Groff has denied any knowledge of, or participation in, Epstein’s crimes.  

Michael Bachner, a lawyer for Groff, declined comment in advance of her appearance on Capitol Hill. He previously told ABC News that Groff “never knowingly booked travel for anyone under the age of 18, and had no knowledge of the alleged illegal activity whatsoever.”

“Ms. Groff, a parent herself, is incredibly shocked and deeply upset about the alleged wrongdoings of Mr. Epstein,” Bachner said.

After Epstein’s arrest in July 2019, federal prosecutors included Groff in a list of potential co-conspirators and sent her a subpoena. Bachner informed the government, just four days after Epstein’s arrest, that his client “would invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination” if called to appear before a grand jury.

Groff, now 59, eventually interviewed with the investigators two years later, telling prosecutors that “making massage appointments was just another appointment she had to make” for Epstein, and said that scheduling massages was “around 1%” of her job.  

Groff, who was hired by Epstein in 2001, told the FBI she was immediately struck by Epstein’s lifestyle and the company he kept, describing it as “pretty incredible to see all the people Epstein dealt with in politics, television, et cetera.”   

“Groff felt, ‘Wow,'” according to an FBI account of her interview.

Groff was initially paid a salary of $60,000 a year, but saw it doubled to $120,000 by Epstein four years later, DOJ records show.

The New York Times reported in 2005 that Epstein bought Groff a new Mercedes and paid for a nanny to ensure she would keep working for him.

“There is no way that I could lose Lesley to motherhood,” Epstein said of Groff, according to the newspaper’s account.

Banking records included in the DOJ’s Epstein files indicate that Groff also received three payments of $100,000 and one for $110,000 from Epstein companies between 2016 and 2018, though the records do not indicate the reasons for the payments.

Bachner told the government that Groff stayed with Epstein after his first arrest in Florida in 2006 because she believed him when he said that “someone was trying to blackmail him.”

When he was again arrested in 2019, she resigned, her lawyer told prosecutors.

“She felt betrayed and disgusted once the indictment came out,” Bachner wrote.

According to documents released by the Justice Department in response to the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, one victim — who was a minor at the time of her alleged abuse — told the FBI that she felt Groff “knew that the massage appointments were sexual” and “felt it was pretty obvious Lesley knew what was going on,” according to the DOJ records.

Federal prosecutors in 2021 informed Groff that she would not be charged, according to a statement from her attorneys.

“After a more than two-year investigation by the Department of Justice into Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct, which included lengthy interviews of witnesses and a thorough review of relevant communications, we have been informed that no criminal charges will be brought against Lesley Groff,” the statement said. 

Lacerda said she hopes the congressional investigators press Groff for answers.

“I just think that she should be honest about it so that we can have some accountability here,” she said.

Oversight Committee member Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said he’s heading into the interview with Groff already skeptical of her denials.

“She will argue that she didn’t know anything, but I find that to be hard to believe,” he said. “I think at best she was blissfully trying to be ignorant, but probably wasn’t.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Vance Boelter, the man charged in the 2025 fatal shooting of a Minnesota state representative and her husband, and another attack that left a second lawmaker and his wife wounded, according to a Department of Justice spokesperson.

Prosecutors declined to pursue the ultimate punishment against 58-year-old Boelter because a federal judge ruled earlier this year in an unrelated murder case that interstate stalking charges do not rise to the level to support a capital crime, officials said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(TOLEDO, Ohio) — Investigators are searching for two individuals believed to have opened fire at an Ohio festival last weekend, leaving 12 people shot. 

The suspects are believed to be two males between the ages of 18 and 24, Toledo Police Chief Michael Trinley said at a press conference Tuesday.

Several people of interest have been brought in for interviews and investigators have executed several search warrants, but no arrests have been made at this point, Trinley said.

Investigators believe they have “significant leads on who’s involved” and are hoping to make arrests “shortly,” Trinley said. 

The 12 people who were shot are expected to survive, according to Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz. Some of the victims were intentionally targeted, but the majority were innocent bystanders, Kapszukiewicz said. 

Investigators believe only three of those shot were part of the activity that happened, Trinley said. 

Investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a dispute involving two rival groups, Trinley said. 

Two groups were “disrespecting each other and it led into a little bit of a foot chase” before one individual assaulted another person. At that point, one person pulled out a firearm and started shooting. Someone from the rival group then pulled out his firearm and started returning fire,” Trinley said. 

Investigators determined what happened based on reviewing video evidence and conducting interviews, Trinley said. 

Investigators are currently processing two guns and comparing them to shell casings found at the scene, Trinley said. 

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