Enlarge image
Robert Durst in court in Los Angeles in March 2020
Photo: Robyn Beck / AP
The American multimillionaire Robert Durst has to answer in another case in court.
The District Attorney's Office in Westchester, New York, announced on Monday that it had filed a lawsuit against Durst.
The background is the disappearance of Durst's first wife Kathie McCormack Durst almost 40 years ago.
The case caused quite a stir in the United States at the time.
McCormack Durst disappeared without a trace in 1982, and a body was never found.
In 2017 she was pronounced dead.
Her disappearance has never been charged.
Just last month, Los Angeles real estate heir, Durst, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the murder of a friend more than 20 years ago.
A jury found it proven that he shot his friend Susan Berman at her Beverly Hills home over Christmas 2000.
According to the prosecution, Berman had helped her close friend Durst cover up the killing of his first wife: she helped him by providing him with an alibi, lied under oath and pretended to be Kathie until the matter got stuck.
Thirst has also been linked to a third death: body parts were found in 2001 by a neighbor of Durst's in Texas.
In this case, too, he had to answer in court - and pleaded self-defense.
At that time, Durst was surprisingly acquitted of the murder charge.
He had testified that he accidentally shot his neighbor while fighting over the gun.
Then he sawed up the body, packed the remains in garbage bags and threw them into the sea.
Robert Durst belongs to one of the most prominent New York real estate dynasties.
He is the oldest offspring of the Durst clan, who own eleven skyscrapers and manage One World Trade Center.
aar / dpa