Robert Durst: 'The Jinx' jailed for seven years for illegal possession of handgun

The real estate scion still faces a murder charge relating to a friend's death in California

Robert Durst has been arrested in connection with a 2000 murder (AP)

Robert Durst, the multi-millionaire at the centre of the hit television series ‘The Jinx’, has been sentenced to spend seven years in jail for gun crime, even as he still faces a murder charge over the death of a friend.

A judge in New Orleans on Wednesday approved a plea bargain, under which the real estate scion will serve the time in California, where he faces the murder charge over the death of a friend in 2000.

Reuters said that the 73-year-old, who entered and left the courtroom in a wheelchair, had pleaded guilty to the gun charge in February.


 Robert Durst agreed to the plea deal earlier this year
 (Getty)

Speaking in a weak voice, he asked US District Judge Kurt Engelhardt to speed his transfer to California, so that he could defend himself over the charge relating to the death of writer Susan Berman.

“I truly, truly want to express my statement that I am not guilty of killing Susan Berman,” said Durst, appearing thin in his loose-fitting orange prison jumpsuit.

Durst had been held in Louisiana since his arrest in March last year for the illegal possession of a weapon, after a search of his New Orleans hotel room turned up a handgun.

His arrest came one day before the series finale of an HBO documentary entitled, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, which detailed a number of police investigations of the multimillionaire whose family is known for its New York property portfolio.

Mr Engelhardt approved a plea agreement calling for an 85-month prison stint, followed by three years of supervised release. The judge said the deal also resolved several pending charges against Durst in New York, Texas, and Louisiana state court.

The HBO series documented investigations of Durst in connection with the dismemberment killing of a male neighbour in Texas in 2003, for which he was tried and acquitted of murder, and the 1982 disappearance in New York of his wife, Kathleen, the news agency said.

In the final episode of the series, Durst’s voice was captured on a microphone after an interview as he muttered that he had “killed them all”.

Durst has previous convictions in Texas related to jumping bail and carrying a weapon across state lines in 2004 as he tried to flee the murder prosecution there. Durst served about three years in connection with those charges.

Prosecutors say Durst, who has long been estranged from his family, is worth around $100m.

Durst could move to California within four to six weeks, his lawyer Dick DeGuerin said before Wednesday’s hearing. He was expected to be formally arraigned on the murder charge in Los Angeles on August 18