Robert Durst Gets 7-Year Prison Sentence in Plea Deal

Real estate heir and subject of “The Jinx” pleads guilty on gun charge

robert durst the jinx
HBO

Real estate heir Robert Durst was sentenced to seven years, one month in prison on Wednesday on a gun charge.

Durst, who was infamously the subject of the documentary “The Jinx,” will also be subject to three years of supervised release, per the Associated Press. He was officially sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt in a hearing in New Orleans.

In March 2015, the FBI arrested Durst at the JW Marriott Hotel on Canal Street because they feared he was about to flee the country. He had registered at the hotel with a fake name, and upon search, law enforcement discovered he was carrying a handgun. At the time, Durst was a convicted felon and therefore, it was illegal for him to possess the gun.

At that time, HBO was airing the six-part documentary “The Jinx,” which chronicles his various run-ins with the law and suspicions that he was responsible for several murders.

In 2000, police were preparing to question Susan Berman, a friend of Durst’s, in the investigation of the disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack. But before they were able to get to Berman, she was found shot to death in her Benedict Canyon, Calif. home on Dec. 24 that year. L.A. district attorneys reopened the murder case after evidence was revealed during “The Jinx” that further implicated Durst’s involvement.

The documentary ended with Durst speaking into the microphone he didn’t know was on: “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” Durst still faces a murder charge in California for Berman’s death.

According to the New York Times, Durst is worth than $100 million and used some of the country’s best defense lawyers in the past. Moreover, in 2003, he was acquitted of murder charges despite his account of cutting up his neighbor, Morris Black. Durst claimed the death was an accident after the two men fought for a gun. Black’s body parts were found in the Galveston Bay, but the head was never found.

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