Fugitive Heir Pleads Guilty To Gun Charge

The New York property heir, whose family own some of Manhattan’s most lucrative buildings, pled guilty to a weapons charge and agreed to an 85-month prison sentence in New Orleans, opening up the possibility of being extradited to California on murder charges.

“I plead guilty”, Durst said, acknowledging that he indeed was a felon in illegal possession of a weapon, for which the maximum sentence is 10 years. A judge has reportedly “provisionally” accepted the deal, but would be under further review.

Durst was charged past year with the 2000 death of his friend Susan Berman after mumbling “killed them all” during the taping of an HBO documentary. In 2003, a jury in Galveston, Texas, acquitted him of murdering his neighbour, Morris Black, even after Durst admitted dismembering Black’s corpse and throwing the pieces into Galveston Bay.

Durst, who broke with his family in 1994, was arrested in New Orleans last March, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation became convinced that he was preparing to leave the country rather than face charges in California. Durst has been in a Louisiana jail ever since.

Durst will be sent to a federal prison in California once he is sentenced in the gun case. Durst’s attorneys have said in the past the charges are spurious and that they are confident they will be vindicated in court.

Durst’s attorney has told CNN that “The Jinx” made for great television but does not represent a search for the truth. Berman helped give Durst an alibi at the time.

The agreement seals Durst’s extradition from New Orleans to Los Angeles. In that last episode, Durst appeared to confess to killing the women when he was confronted with a letter he wrote that matched the handwriting police found at Berman’s crime scene. “But, yes, this one is tough”, attorney Dick DeGuerin said.

Authorities believe that Durst killed Berman, who was also Jewish, because of what she knew about his wife’s disappearance.

McMahon says the murder case is “certainly not a slam-dunk” and will be fiercely fought, but he thinks Durst will be convicted. It’s certainly not a slam dunk. The authorities later found a wig used to support his alias and a money clip that had belonged to Berman.