Real estate scion Durst due back in Louisiana court on gun charges

[April 09, 2015]  By Jonathan Kaminsky
 
 NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Robert Durst, the real estate scion awaiting extradition to California to face a murder charge, was due back in a Louisiana court on Thursday to face a new indictment on firearms offenses stemming from his arrest last month in New Orleans.

Prosecutors in California have been seeking Durst's return to Los Angeles County, where he stands accused of the December 2000 slaying of a longtime friend, Susan Berman, in a case recently chronicled in the HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst."

The final episode of the series aired one day after his March 21 arrest at a New Orleans hotel, where authorities said he was staying under an assumed name with $42,000 in cash, a revolver, a stash of marijuana and a latex mask in his possession.

But prospects for his extradition apparently were complicated on Wednesday when, according to Assistant District Attorney Christopher Bowman, a grand jury in New Orleans indicted him on charges of possessing a weapon as a felon and carrying a firearm with a controlled substance.

Bowman, a spokesman for the Orleans Parish D.A., declined further comment on the case.

Durst, 71, who was denied bail as a flight risk during an appearance before a magistrate last month, was scheduled to return to court on Thursday.

Durst's attorneys have previously argued that FBI agents who arrested him and searched his hotel room did so without the proper warrants.

The HBO series documented several police investigations that Durst has been the subject of over the years, including the dismemberment killing of his male neighbor in Texas in 2003, for which he was tried on murder charges and acquitted, and the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathleen, in New York.

Toward the end of the series, he was presented with evidence that his handwriting appeared to match that of Berman's likely killer. His voice was subsequently captured on a microphone saying that he had "killed them all."

He has long been estranged from his powerful family, known for its significant New York real estate holdings.

(Reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky in New Orleans; Editing by Steve Gorman)

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