Robert Durst, the wealthy New York City real estate heir and murder suspect who was the subject of last year’s HBO documentary miniseries The Jinx, pleaded guilty to illegal gun possession in New Orleans on Wednesday, the New York Times reports.
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Durst, who is being held without bail, also faces murder charges in Los Angeles, where he is accused in the unsolved slaying of Susan Berman, his longtime friend. He is expected to return to California by August 18 for his arraignment on the pending murder charge, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
The guilty plea and an agreement reached with several other jurisdictions “clear the decks” for Durst’s extradition to California, his lawyers said.
Robert Durst, the estranged son of real estate mogul Seymour Durst, creeped out a large swath of HBO’s subscriber base in 2015 when they saw him discuss investigations into his behavior on The Jinx.
In this case, the TV series put a spotlight on Durst, and revealed possible evidence that raised new suspicions for law enforcement officials. He has waived extradition and says he wants to go to Califorina in a bid to prove his innocence, but won’t go there until he is formally sentenced, though the plea can be nullified if the judge chooses a different sentence.
Durst was later arrested in a New Orleans hotel, with FBI investigators saying they feared he planned to leave the country. Berman helped give Durst an alibi at the time.
Durst has long maintained that he had nothing to do with Berman’s death or his wife’s disappearance. The maximum penalty that Robert Durst could have faced was 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But a guilty plea to gun charges could open the door to a murder trial. He was arrested the day before the show’s finale. After his arrest, a package with $117,000 in cash arrived, addressed to Everette Ward.
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Last year, the millionaire was arrested for the execution-style shooting of his college friend Susan Berman – an act in which authorities think was to keep her from talking to investigators about the disappearance of his first wife Kathleen McCormack in 1982.
