Real estate heir Robert Durst pleads guilty to gun charge
NEW ORLEANS --A New York real estate heir has pleaded guilty in Louisiana to a weapons charge and has agreed to a sentence of seven years and one month imprisonment.
WATCH: "48 Hours:" Murder 90210
Robert Durst had been charged with illegally carrying a .38-caliber revolver. The maximum penalty that he could have faced was 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt said Wednesday that he would "provisionally" accept the plea and would make a final decision after he receives a pre-sentencing report expected in two weeks. Assistant U.S. attorney Michael McMahon said the plea bargain will be nullified if the judge gives Durst a different sentence.
The acceptance of the deal is another step toward Durst's extradition to California, where he is wanted in the murder of his friend and onetime spokewoman Susan Berman in 2000. Durst has waived extradition but won't immediately be sent to California until at least the sentencing.
"48 Hours'" Erin Moriarty was the first to report the unusual plea deal. Defense attorney Richard DeGuerin told Moriarty Durst is eager to face trial in California so he can prove he didn't kill Berman.
Moriarty reports Durst is pushing to be in a Los Angeles courtroom by August.
Durst was the subject of the wildly popular HBO documentary "The Jinx," which investigated Berman's murder, Durst's acquittal in the 2001 death of his friend Morris Black in Galveston, Texas, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance of his wife Kathie in 1982.
An estranged member of the wealthy New York real estate family that runs 1 World Trade Center, Durst is accused of killing Berman to keep her from talking to New York prosecutors about his wife's disappearance.
FBI agents tracked him to a New Orleans hotel on the eve of the finale of "The Jinx." He was formally arrested early on the day of the broadcast.