Real estate scion Robert Durst indicted on weapons charges in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (REUTERS) - Robert Durst, the real estate scion awaiting extradition to California to face a murder charge, was indicted on weapons charges in New Orleans on Wednesday, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office said.

Durst, recently featured in the HBO documentary The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst, has been charged with the 2000 murder of a longtime friend in Los Angeles County and has sought a swift extradition to face that charge.

He was indicted by a grand jury on two Louisiana gun charges for illegally possessing a firearm as a felon and for carrying a weapon with a controlled substance, said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Bowman, a spokesman for Orleans Parish District, declining further comment.

A court hearing in his case is scheduled for Thursday.

Durst's attorneys had argued that his arrest last month and the initial search of his hotel room were improperly conducted.

His lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.

Durst, 71, was arrested at a New Orleans hotel, where he was staying under an alias. Police said they found a revolver and a stash of marijuana in his room.

His arrest came the day before the airing of the final episode of the HBO series, in which a filmmaker's microphone caught him saying he had "killed them all."

Durst was acquitted in the dismemberment killing of his neighbour in Texas in 2003.

He was suspected in the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathleen Durst, in New York.

He has long been estranged from his powerful family with its significant New York real estate holdings.

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