The public defender assigned to Parkland shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz filed a notice to withdraw from the case because he soon won’t qualify for free counsel.

Broward County Public Defender's Office filed the notice late Wednesday because the 20-year-old suspect will soon be inheriting nearly a half-million dollars. Cruz will be receiving over $432,000 from his late mother Lynda Cruz’s life insurance policy, who died in November 2017 from pneumonia.

Cruz is accused of shooting and killing seventeen students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and injuring over a dozen others three months after his mother's death. He is currently facing 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.

Howard Finkelstein, Cruz’s public defender from the Broward County Public Defender’s office, along with his chief assistant Gordon Weekes, say they only learned about the life insurance policy this week. Weekes told the Associated Press that “By statute, we can only represent the poor and indigent. We are asking to withdraw from the case because the defendant is no longer poor.”

However, NBC News points out that Cruz may not see any of the money. Families of the Parkland victims are suing Cruz and it is possible they will claim the money with judges assigning how it is divided. Cruz has also said he’d prefer the money to go to the victims’ families.

Cruz is currently pleading not guilty, though Finkelstein has said Cruz would enter a guilty plea in exchange for life in prison. Prosecutors, on the other hand, are seeking the death penalty. Cruz’s trial is scheduled to begin in early 2020.

Nikolas Cruz
Nikolas Cruz sits next to his attorneys appointed by the Broward Public Defender’s Office as a judge determines if he can afford his own lawyer, in Broward Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on April 11, 2018. Reuters/Taimy Alvarez
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