Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner’s son was a no-show in court this morning, but Nick Reiner will face murder charges later today from the Los Angeles County District Attorney.
Retained to defend the younger Reiner, former Harvey Weinstein and Karen Read lawyer Alan Jackson said Monday that his new client did not appear at a 8:30 am PT hearing because he was not “medically cleared.”
The phrase was in relation to the process of moving Reiner from the jail he is currently in to the criminal courthouse downtown. It is a measure, as Jackson cautioned today outside the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center that “every inmate,” high-profile or not, has to go through in the LA judicial system.
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“He will be here hopefully tomorrow,” Jackson added of Nick Reiner. Still, to that, this morning set hearing was a bust, with no more formal information available as to when an arraignment or the likes will occur.
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However, we may find out more about what’s next in the Reiner case in the next few hours.
Joined by LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, Nathan Hochman is scheduled to go public this afternoon with details on how his office intends to handle the claims that the younger Reiner killed his parents on December 14 at their Brentwood home.
Arrested late Sunday night and now being held without bail on suspicion of murder, Nick Reiner is behind bars in downtown LA. On Monday, less than a day after the 78-year-old Oscar nominated director and his 68-year-old wife were discovered with multiple fatal stab wounds in their house, the LAPD bluntly said that the younger Reiner was “responsible for their deaths.”
Today, the DA is expected to announce either murder in the first degree or murder in the second degree charges against the 32-year-old Reiner, with sources close to event indicating it will likely be the former not the latter. As of this morning, nothing has been filed on the LA Superior Court docket. Still, that is almost certain to change by the 1 pm PT press conference that Chief McDonnell and DA Hochman will be appearing at.
Neither the DA’s office nor defense attorney Jackson responded to Deadline’s Tuesday request for comments. Yet, we do know that the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division-led case was delivered over to DA Hochman’s office this morning, as the cops said Monday it likely would be.
If Nick Reiner is charged with and found guilty of first degree murder, which involves premeditation, he will be facing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Only in very special circumstances, could a defendant be looking at the death penalty here in California. If the younger Reiner is charged with and found guilty of the felony of second degree murder, which is usually around what is viewed as a spontaneous or unintentional act, he could be incarcerated for up to 15 years.
Both Nick Reiner and his now deceased father have been quite transparent in recent years about the son’s battles and struggles with addictions.
Besides the duo working together on the 2015 father/son/addiction feature Being Charle, Nick Reiner has spoken about resisting attempts to get him to go to rehab and ending up on the streets as a consequence. The younger Reiner, one of three siblings from the over 30-year marriage of Rob and Michele Reiner, had been living with his parents in recent weeks, Deadline learned this past weekend.
The tragic death of Rob and Michele Reiner has received almost universal sorrow from the Hollywood community, with as ideologically diverse individuals as John Cusack and James Woods praising the A Few Good Men director as a good man, a great friend, and American artist.
Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump proved the contrarian.
The former Apprentice host attacked Democratic supporting Reiner not once but twice on December 15. Going even further than his online post of earlier in the day, Trump in the Oval Office called Reiner a “deranged person” because of his criticism of POTUS and his MAGA policies. Trump’s asinine comments proved even too much for some on the usually solid MAGA GOP benches …though not that many.