Prosecutors Ask For Delay In Robert Durst's Louisiana Weapons Case
NEW ORLEANS (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Prosecutors are asking a New Orleans judge for a delay in the weapons-charges case against New York real estate heir Robert Durst, who also faces a murder charge in California.
Judge Harry Cantrell is hearing arguments Thursday in the Louisiana case.
Durst was arrested in March at a New Orleans hotel. His attorneys say the FBI illegally searched his room.
Lead defense attorney Dick DeGuerin told "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty that the FBI detained Durst at his hotel at 3 p.m. March 14 and uncovered a .38-caliber revolver and stash of marijuana at 6 p.m. But police did not obtain a search warrant until 2 a.m. March 15, Durst's lawyers say.
"It's a pretty basic law. Police have to have a warrant," DeGuerin said.
Prosecutors said Thursday in asking for the delay that defense motions and documents of more than 130 pages were submitted with two days' notice or less.
Durst's attorneys say there is little new in the motions. They want the hearing Thursday.
Durst has waived extradition to Los Angeles, where he faces the murder charge. His lawyers say they want to get him there to fight that charge in the death of his friend and spokeswoman Susan Berman in 2000.
Durst's arrest came on the same day the finale aired of "The Jinx," an HBO documentary series detailing his of privilege and links to three deaths: Berman; his wife, Kathleen Durst, in Westchester County in 1982; and Morris Black, an elderly neighbor in Texas in 2001.
Berman was a mobster's daughter who acted as his spokeswoman after his wife went missing; and Black's dismembered body was found floating in Galveston Bay in 2001. Durst was tried only for the Texas killing, but he was acquitted of murder after successfully arguing he killed his neighbor in self-defense.
In the series finale, Durst was asked about similarities in handwriting in a letter he wrote and another linked to the Berman killing. Later, filmmakers said Durst wore his microphone into the bathroom.
Durst was recorded saying — apparently to himself — "There it is, you're caught" and, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."
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