Robert Durst’s lawyer says prosecutors demonized ‘sick, aged man’

Robert Durst is a ill, aged, defenceless gentleman who has been crushed up and demonized by prosecutors to include up a deficiency of evidence towards him, his attorney said Thursday in closing arguments at the New York authentic estate heir’s murder demo.

Lawyer Dick DeGuerin instructed jurors not to be swayed by ghastly images of the system Durst dismembered in Texas and tossed out to sea, stating it was only intended to make them dislike him.

DeGuerin conceded his consumer did glimpse terrible soon after practically a few weeks of testimony, such as 9 days of punishing cross-evaluation that exposed numerous lies. He accused the prosecutor of “beating up on a unwell, old person who can not defend himself.”

“I would not blame you soon after hearing what you’ve read if you despise Bob Durst and think he’s a liar,” DeGuerin stated in Los Angeles Superior Court docket. “Making Bob Durst a liar does not make him a killer.”

DeGuerin claimed he wasn’t aiming for sympathy, but he was seriously concerned about the wellbeing of his customer and was not positive he would are living via the trial.

Durst, 78, who sat hunched in a wheelchair as his lawyer spoke, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the stage-blank capturing of Susan Berman in December 2000 at her Los Angeles household.

Prosecutors reported Durst killed her as she planned to converse to authorities about how she furnished a phoney alibi for him when his spouse went lacking in New York in 1982.

DeGuerin said prosecutors had failed to establish how, when and wherever Kathie Durst was killed, nevertheless he said circumstantial proof indicates she’s most likely useless. Her body’s hardly ever been identified, and no a single has been billed with a criminal offense in relationship with her disappearance.

Robert Durst stated he set his spouse on a train bound for Manhattan soon after a weekend at their lakeside house in Westchester County and by no means observed or listened to from her yet again. He has admitted he lied about many items he advised investigators just after reporting her lacking.

DeGuerin reported there is no credible proof to aid the prosecution concept that Berman experienced impersonated Kathie Durst the next day to cellular phone the health-related school she attended to say she was ill. Prosecutors mentioned the phone built it appear Kathie Durst was alive just after she was very last witnessed by her husband.

Whilst Durst is only on demo in Berman’s killing, prosecutors had been ready to existing proof that he killed his spouse for the reason that it delivers the motive for killing Berman, who they said was a important witness. Quite a few of Berman’s buddies testified that she possibly told them Durst experienced admitted killing his wife or that she helped him include his tracks.

Prosecutors have also been able to introduce evidence from a Galveston, Texas, demo in which Durst was acquitted of murder.

DeGuerin correctly defended Durst in the 2001 killing of Morris Black. Durst testified that Black pulled a gun on him and was shot all through a wrestle for the weapon. He was convicted of disposing of proof for chopping up Black’s human body and dumping it in Galveston Bay.

DeGuerin accused prosecutors of trying to inflame the jury by dredging up the Texas circumstance and exhibiting the gruesome pictures of Black’s overall body areas that washed ashore.

“What’s happened below is the prosecution is making an attempt to get a do in excess of of that demo,” DeGuerin reported.

Prosecutors said Durst killed Black simply because the man found out his identification immediately after he disguised himself as a mute girl hiding out in Texas for the reason that he predicted he was heading to be indicted in New York on expenses he killed his wife.

DeGuerin reported that beneath the prosecution principle it created no sense he would destroy Black to keep him from exposing him. Berman was the witness who could hook up him to Kathie Durst’s dying, and she was killed 9 months earlier.

“The principle of the prosecution is that Morris Black located out that Bob Durst was Bob Durst,” DeGeurin claimed. “But Bob Durst didn’t have nearly anything to stress about any much more if you acknowledge the prosecution theory that Bob Durst’s motive for killing Susan Berman was to shut her up.”

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