The millionaire is scheduled to appear in a Louisiana courtroom Thursday. He was arrested there on charges he murdered his best friend in Los Angeles about 15 years ago.
Durst in New Orleans in March.
Gerald Herbert / AP
Lawyers for Robert Durst, the millionaire Manhattan real estate heir, are expected to argue in a Louisiana court on Thursday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation illegally searched his New Orleans hotel room before he was arrested in March.
Durst's attorneys filed a motion claiming FBI agents "rummaged" through Durst's New Orleans hotel room without a warrant and police officers covered it up, according to the Associated Press. The 71-year-old man faces drug and firearm possession charges and is scheduled for a hearing Thursday.
"[T]hose items were actually discovered by the FBI in a warrantless search of Mr. Durst's hotel room, preceded by a warrantless detention and arrest, long before the search warrant was issued," according to the motion, provided to the AP by Durst's lawyers.
A day before Durst's March 15 arrest, an FBI agent searched his hotel room prior to a judge signing an arrest warrant, Orleans Parish district attorney's investigator Jim O'Hern testified at Durst's bail hearing. O'Hern said this was done for the safekeeping of the belongings.
Such a search is not supported by FBI policy or court rulings "and the state cannot expect the Court to take this justification seriously," the motion said. Instead, his attorneys argued that FBI agents should have removed and secured Durst's things.
Durst's attorneys also asked a judge to subpoena all video surveillance from the New Orleans Marriott Hotel and Los Angeles Police Department as well as Fox News' Jeanine Pirro, a former New York prosecutor who investigated Durst when his first wife disappeared in 1982.
LINK: “The Jinx” Ends With Robert Durst Saying “Killed Them All, Of Course”
LINK: Experts Explain Whether Robert Durst’s “Confession” Could Be Admissible In Court
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