Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz 'will donate his inheritance to charity'

The young man who shot and killed people in a school shooting in Florida is meant to inherit a fortune. Nikolas Cruz recently had a court hearing to determine if he should pay for a lawyer.

Currently, the lawyers he has are state funded with taxpayer’s monies. His court hearing was on April 11, 2018, according to Inside Edition.

Defense attorney, Melisa McNeill, of the Parkland school shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, 19, has stated that he wanted to donate his inheritance money. The money is available as a result of his mother’s death.

McNeil stated that Cruz wanted to donate the inheritance to a charity chosen by the families of his victims. The suspect appeared in court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether he had too much money to expect taxpayers to pay for his public defenders.

Currently, he’s being represented by the Broward Public Defender’s Office. This office generally handles cases for clients who cannot afford to hire their own lawyers.

Court records from his late mother’s probate case show that Cruz stands to receive $25,000 from a life insurance policy. The Sun-Sentinal also reported that he also stands to receive up to $800,000 more from her estate.

"Whatever money he is entitled to, he does not want that money. He would like that money donated to an organization that the victims' family believes would be able to facilitate healing in our community or an opportunity to educate our community."

Melisa McNeill, Inside Edition, April 11, 2018

Cruz's adoptive mother reportedly died of cancer months before the shooting. When she passed on, another family took him in.

"If you remove our office at this moment right now, in the highest-profile case in America, the defendant is going to be left without a lawyer,” Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said.

He added that from that removal a flow of myriad legal problems would follow. Cruz has confessed to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Valentine's Day.

If he’s convicted of murdering 17 people, he could face the death penalty.