The criminal defense lawyer representing Nick Reiner — who stands accused of fatally stabbing his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner — told a judge Wednesday he is removing himself from the case.
"I have no choice but to step down of counsel of record," Alan Jackson said in court ahead of Nick Reiner's arraignment.
Kimberly Greene, a Los Angeles County public defender, then stepped in and asked the judge to postpone the arraignment. The judge rescheduled the hearing for Feb. 23.
In remarks to reporters outside the courthouse, Jackson said his team wished Nick Reiner "the very, very best moving forward" and insisted that his former client was "not guilty."
Jackson, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, previously represented former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey.
In response to Jackson's departure from the case, a spokesperson for the Reiner family said: "They have the utmost trust in the legal process and will not comment further on matters related to the legal proceedings."
Los Angeles prosecutors charged Nick Reiner, 32, with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the Dec. 14 deaths of the beloved filmmaker and his wife, a photographer and movie producer.
He is being held without bail at a Los Angeles jail, inmate records show. If he is convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
Jackson previously asked the public not to jump to conclusions about his client and to act “with restraint and with dignity and with the respect that this system and this process deserves and that the family deserves.”
Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found dead in the primary bedroom of their home in the Brentwood neighborhood from what the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office described as multiple sharp force injuries.
Nick Reiner was arrested Dec. 14 without incident near the University of Southern California, police officials have said.
Authorities have not identified a possible motive.
Nick Reiner has openly discussed his history with drug addiction, telling People magazine a decade ago that he spent weeks sleeping on the streets and had been in and out of rehab beginning at age 15.
Those struggles inspired the 2016 film “Being Charlie,” which Nick Reiner co-wrote and his father directed.
In a statement after the deaths, two of Nick Reiner's siblings asked “for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity."
“Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day,” the statement said. “The horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience. They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends.”
Rob Reiner established himself as a TV star on the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family” before he turned to filmmaking and began directing some of Hollywood's most iconic films, including "This Is Spinal Tap," "Stand By Me" and "When Harry Met Sally..."
