Just two days after real estate tycoon and multi-billionaire Robert Durst was sentenced to life in prison for failing to pardon the murder of his good friend, his lawyer said tonight (Sunday) that he was hooked up to a respirator after contracting the corona virus.
"He had difficulty breathing and had difficulty communicating," attorney Dick Degorin, Drest's defense attorney, wrote in an email to the Los Angeles Times.
"He looks worse than I've ever seen him. I was very worried about him."
Lawyer Dick Dagorin, defense attorney for killer billionaire Robert Drest, Photo: Reuters
During the trial of 78-year-old Drest, he was hospitalized at the University of Southern California Hospital, where he is constantly under police supervision.
However, it is still unknown whether the billionaire is still hospitalized on the spot or where and when he contracted in Corona.
According to the newspaper, dozens of people were present in the courtroom during the reading of Drest's sentence, and it is not known whether any of them, or another person who was close to the real estate tycoon during his trial, was infected with the virus. The court then ruled that he was guilty of the murder of Susan Berman, because he was forced into solitary confinement after being exposed to a person who was positive about Corona.
A doctor at Cedar Sinai Hospital in California who had previously examined Drest, said he was on "serious malnutrition" and that there was an "immediate death threat" to his life.
In addition, he claimed that the billionaire suffered from a "mini-stroke" during a hearing held for him in 2019. Judge Mark Wyndham overturned the doctor's testimony, which he defined as "activism".
Drest in court, last month, Photo: EPI
As you may recall, Drest was convicted last month of first-degree murder.
According to the indictment filed against him, in 2000 he murdered his best friend, Susan Berman, at her home in Beverly Hills, who was planning to approach the police to talk to her about the disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack Drest, who was last seen in New York in 1982.
Although her body was never found, Kathleen was officially pronounced dead in 2017.
Drest was charged in 2003 with the murder of a neighbor who apparently knew about his actions, but was acquitted of his actions.
Six years ago, Drest, who has been diagnosed with bladder cancer, was documented during the filming of "The Jinx," in which he was at the center and where he was asked about suspicions that have arisen against him over the years, according to which he killed several people.
He was recorded unknowingly when he said "That's it, you were caught he was right, I was wrong. What the hell did I do? I killed them all, of course," admitting the murders.