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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Robert Durst, the millionaire New York real estate heir acquitted last year of murdering a neighbor in Texas, pleaded guilty to federal gun charges in exchange for a sentence of up to nine months. The case involved two .38-caliber revolvers that Durst brought with him when he fled Texas in 2001 after the shooting death of his 71-year-old neighbor, whose body Durst chopped up and dumped into Galveston Bay. He was caught shoplifting a sandwich at a grocery store near Bethlehem and the guns were found in his rental car. A Galveston jury found him innocent of murder after he testified that neighbor Morris Black was shot accidentally while the two struggled for a gun. He said he cut up the body because he panicked. He received a light sentence for bail-jumping and evidence-tampering charges and was about to be paroled when he was indicted in Pennsylvinia on two charges of carrying a gun across state lines while he was a fugitive.
On Monday, he pleaded guilty to both weapons counts in exchange for a sentence of no more than nine months in prison, plus two years on probation. He could be free in as little as seven months if he gets credit for some time already spent and behaves well behind bars. Sentencing was set for Nov. 29. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert K. Reed said that if Durst had gone to trial and been convicted, he could have been sentenced to as much as three years. Durst moved to Texas, using an alias, amid media attention surrounding a new investigation into the mysterious 1982 disappearance of his first wife. Los Angeles authorities also wanted to question Durst about the Christmas Eve 2000 slaying of one of his friends. While living in Galveston, Durst posed as a mute woman and lived in a dingy apartment. His family runs The Durst Organization, a privately held, billion-dollar New York real estate company. | 
