Robert Durst, the Jewish real estate heir long suspected of multiple murders, pleaded guilty to a gun possession charge in Louisiana and is expected to face murder charges.
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When he is sentenced, Durst will be extradited to California to face murder charges for Susan Berman.
Durst, the heir to the Durst Organization, a large NY real estate company, rose to national prominence early a year ago during the airing of HBO’s documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst”.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt has scheduled Robert Durst’s re-arraignment for Wednesday on a charge of illegally carrying a.38-caliber revolver after a felony conviction.
The gun was found when Durst was arrested last March in a New Orleans hotel.
Durst remains in the St. Charles Jail as he awaits extradition. If the judge accepts the sentence, then it is up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide where Durst will serve it, though Englehardt can recommend a prison.
The millionaire is accused of killing friend and former spokeswoman Susan Berman to keep her from talking to investigators looking into the disappearance of his first wife in 1982.
DeGuerin’s statement Wednesday said, “Bob Durst did not kill Susan Berman and doesn’t know who did, and he’s eager to get to California to prove it. His legal team has been working to “clear the decks” of other investigations so he can get to California as soon as possible”. Durst later pleaded guilty to charges of bond jumping and evidence tampering in connection with the case.
He describing the proposed sentence as “the result of very intense negotiations” among federal prosecutors, Durst’s attorneys, and the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, which originally brought a weapons charge against Durst.
In the final episode of The Jinx, filmmakers confronted Durst with similarities between the handwriting on a letter he wrote to Berman and a note sent to the LAPD alerting officers to the presence of Berman’s dead body in her house in Beverly Hills. “Killed them all, of course”. He’s been charged with murder in her death.
Durst claimed that Black’s death was an accident that occurred while the two men grappled over a gun. The defense had argued that the search of Mr. Durst’s hotel room by two F.B.I. agents was illegal and that the evidence they turned up, in particular the revolver, should be thrown out.
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The show followed the mogul’s trial for the death and dismemberment of his neighbour Morris Black – for which he was acquitted.
