Robert Durst Ordered Held Without Bond On Louisiana Weapons Charges
NEW ORLEANS (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A magistrate on Monday ordered New York real estate heir a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/tag/robert-durst/">Robert Durst held without bond on weapons charges in Louisiana, and said the man accused of killing his friend 15 years ago in California was both a flight risk and a danger to others.
Durst, 71, was seated beside his lawyers, with his hands shackled to his sides in padded cuffs. He has been in a prison's mental health unit for nearly a week.
Jail officials have called him a suicide risk.
Magistrate Harry Cantrell set a preliminary hearing in the weapons case for April 2.
Durst is accused of killing Susan Berman in 2000, but his lawyers say his arrest was illegal and orchestrated to coincide with the finale of an HBO series about his links to three killings.
He was arrested March 14 at a New Orleans hotel on a Los Angeles County warrant accusing him of murder and in jail two days later on the Louisiana weapons charges.
On Monday, defense attorney Dick DeGuerin said he never expected the magistrate to set bond.
``We were able to get a lot of information we didn't have before,'' DeGuerin said after the hearing. ``I think all in all, we had a very good day.''
One of the weapons charges alleges that Durst had a .38-caliber revolver; previous felony convictions make that illegal. The other charge alleges he had the weapon and illegal drugs: more than 5 ounces of marijuana.
Prosecutors have not said whether they will bring those charges before a grand jury.
None of Durst's previous convictions was serious enough to merit the felon in possession charge, his attorneys say.
Durst had registered at the J.W. Marriott Hotel under the name Everette Ward, and a search of his hotel room turned up his passport, nearly $43,000 in cash, a gun, and a rubber or latex mask that could cover his head and neck, according to a search warrant for his Houston condo.
Durst was charged with murder in California for the December 2000 shooting death of Susan Berman.
The events unfolded days after the finale of a HBO documentary detailing Durst's life 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 has been tried only for the Texas killing, and he was acquitted of murder.
Kristen Modaferri, 18, disappeared in June of 1997 after leaving her job in San Francisco. Investigators placed Durst in the Bay Area around that time.
Five months later, 16-year-old Karen Marie Mitchell was never seen again after leaving her aunt's store in Eureka, California. Durst allegedly visited that store multiple times while dressed in drag, Calvi reported.
Durst waived extradition in New Orleans but is being held on the weapons charges.
During Monday's hearing, DeGuerin asked that prosecutor-turned-TV-host Jeanine Pirro be removed from the courtroom as a potential witness. He said he wanted to question her.
``She's here because she's been participating in the dogging of Mr. Durst for years,'' he said.
But Cantrell ruled that Pirro would not testify.
Pirro -- a Fox News Channel host and former district attorney in New York's Westchester County, where she investigated the still-unsolved disappearance of Durst's first wife -- returned to the courtroom with a small smile.
After court, Pirro said requests for comment would have to go through her employer.
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