NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A weapons-charge hearing for troubled millionaire real estate heir Robert Durst was delayed Thursday after FBI agents failed to show up to testify about his arrest at a New Orleans hotel last month.
Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell reluctantly agreed to the delay and set another hearing for next Thursday. In the meantime, Durst will remain jailed without bond in Louisiana— even as his attorneys say their 71-year-old client is ready to head to California, where he faces a more serious charge: murder of his friend and spokeswoman in a 15-year-old case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Duane Evans told Cantrell that two federal agents and a state trooper assigned to a federal task force were instructed not to testify because more time was needed for a review of their subpoenas.
Durst was arrested in March at a New Orleans hotel. His attorneys say the FBI illegally searched his room. They say agents "rummaged" through it without a warrant.
Durst was arrested at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in New Orleans on the California warrant and later was booked on the Louisiana charges: possession of a firearm by a felon and illegal possession of a firearm and a controlled dangerous substance.
Among the issues at Thursday's hearing were whether the state has probable cause to hold Durst on the weapons charges as well motions by the defense to have the Louisiana warrant thrown out — largely because, the defense says, the search of Durst's hotel room was illegal.
Prosecutor Mark Burton of the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office first asked for a delay, saying the latest motions, amounting to more than 130 pages, were filed too late for him to adequately review them. Defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin objected to the delay, and Cantrell kept the hearing going.
But then FBI agents C. Williams and C. Bender and state Trooper Saunders Craine were called to testify. When they didn't show up, the defense had no witnesses to call, and Cantrell put proceedings off for a week.
Durst's lawyers say the arrest in New Orleans was illegal, and timed to coincide with that weekend's airing of the final episode of "The Jinx," an HBO documentary about Durst.
They also say that after Durst was arrested on the California warrant late on March 14, a Los Angeles detective applied for a search warrant for the hotel room. An FBI agent had already inventoried Durst's belongings in his hotel room the afternoon of March 14, the defense says, maintaining that was an illegal and warrantless search that led to discovery of a gun and marijuana.
The affidavit that was used to get the Louisiana arrest warrant states that Los Angeles police and New Orleans prosecutors got a search warrant, then searched the room and found the gun and drugs, according to the Tuesday motion. The defense calls that a "material misrepresentation designed to cover up the FBI's unlawful, warrantless search of Mr. Durst's hotel room."
Durst's attorneys also have asked the judge to subpoena Fox News Channel's Jeanine Pirro, a former New York prosecutor who investigated Durst in connection with the disappearance of his first wife in 1982, and all video surveillance for March 14 and 15 from the Marriott and Los Angeles Police Department.
Los Angeles police, who have a warrant accusing Durst of killing his friend and spokeswoman Susan Berman in 2000 to keep her from talking to Pirro's investigators, and the FBI did not respond to requests for comment. Louisiana State Police referred requests for comment to the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office. That office does not comment on open cases or investigations, spokesman Chris Bowman said.
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