Robert Durst Indicted on Gun Possession Charges

NEW ORLEANS (CN) - Robert Durst, the multimillionaire son of real estate investor Seymour Durst, was indicted on two gun possession charges Wednesday by an Orleans Parish grand jury. He is being held without bond.

The indictment accuses Durst of possession of a firearm while being a felon and of possession of a controlled substance. The charge refers to a loaded .38-caliber revolver and more than five ounces of marijuana that FBI agents and a state trooper said they found in Durst's Canal Street hotel when they raided his room on March 14 on a warrant from New York.

Conviction on the charges could bring a sentence of between five and 20 years in prison.

Durst's case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Franz Zibilich, who is to handle his arraignment today.

The indictment charges Durst under his formal name as well as under 13 past aliases, including Dorothy Ciner, Everette Ward, Jim Turs, Morris Black, Diane Winn, Robert Dean Jezowski, James Cordes, Emilio Vegnoni and Johnnie Smith.

It will put an indefinite hold on Durst's extradition to Los Angeles, where police are waiting to book Durst with first degree murder in the shooting death of writer Susan Berman.

The HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst" tells the story of three murders alleged to have been committed by Durst.

Durst was a suspect in the still-unsolved disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen Durst after she disappeared from their New York estate in 1982.

In 2003, Durst was acquitted by a Texas jury for the 2001 murder of his neighbor, Morris Black.

Durst admitted to shooting Black and dismembering his body, much of which washed up later inside trash bags in Galveston Bay, but said he did it in self defense. Durst was acquitted. Black's skull was never found.

Durst's attorney in that case, Dick DeGuerin, who is notable also for his representation of Tom DeLay and David Koresh, did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment. Durst's local attorneys, Billy Gibbens and Ike Spears, also did not reply with comments.

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