LOS ANGELES _ Lawyers for New York real estate scion Robert Durst spent Friday morning repeatedly attacking the credibility of a witness who has said the multimillionaire confessed to killing his longtime confidant, Susan Berman.
One day after Nick Chavin, who once considered Durst his best friend, said that Durst confessed to the 2000 slaying during a dinner conversation in New York City, attorney Dick DeGuerin dismissed Chavin's testimony as a "story."
On Thursday, Chavin told the court that Durst's confession came after they shared a meal in New York City in 2014.
"You wanted to talk about Susan?" Chavin recalled asking Durst as the men left the restaurant. The question, he said, prompted a chilling reply.
"I had to. It was her or me," Durst said, according to Chavin. "I had no choice."
But DeGuerin _ who successfully defended Durst in a 2003 murder trial in Texas and has repeatedly said Durst had nothing to do with Berman's killing _ pointed to a recorded 2015 interview with prosecutors in which Chavin said the confession didn't happen.
"We were out on the sidewalk saying goodbye," Chavin said in the interview, parts of which were played in court. "I reminded him that he wanted to talk to me about it ... and he said, 'Next time.'"
DeGuerin seized on the differing accounts given by Chavin, who said he hadn't lied but was simply dodging the prosecutors' questions because he wasn't under oath at the time.
During the afternoon session, Chavin, who had referred to the previous comments as "half-truths" during earlier testimony, admitted he had blatantly lied to prosecutors when asked about Durst's supposed confession in the past.
"I was lying," he said. "I was covering up.... I just didn't want to tell the truth."
Durst's attorneys played a recording from July 2015, where Chavin _ responding to prosecutors' questions about why his wife had told them different things than he had _ said he had lied to his wife in the past.
"I'm a liar, I'm a professional liar _ I'm in advertising," Chavin said on the recorded call.
One of Durst's attorneys smiled and nodded as the audio played Friday.
"Everything I'm saying is based on my wanting to cover up the truth at that time.... I didn't want to admit it," Chavin said later, when pressed about the calls again.
Durst is charged with murder in the execution-style slaying of Berman, who was shot in the back of the head inside her Benedict Canyon home in December 2000. Prosecutors allege that Durst targeted Berman because he was afraid she would talk to investigators about what had happened to his missing wife, Kathleen. Chavin is being deposed by defense and prosecution lawyers ahead of Durst's trial, which isn't likely to take place until next year at the earliest. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for October.
Chavin, 72, told the Los Angeles court on Thursday that Durst had admitted to killing Kathleen in a conversation with Berman, who later relayed that information to Chavin. Berman had insisted that they keep the confession a secret, in order to protect Durst, Chavin said.
DeGuerin also grilled Chavin over comments he made to prosecutors suggesting that testifying against Durst would help his business relationship with the defendant's brother, Douglas. The two siblings are estranged and openly hostile to each other.
"I'm in the middle of a really big pitch, for one of the big _ biggest jobs in the city for Douglas Durst," he told prosecutors at the time. "Douglas is, you know, scared to death of Bob and certainly wants to see Bob put away. It could only help me."
DeGuerin asked Chavin if he had meant that saying something incriminating about Robert Durst would be beneficial to his business interests. Chavin denied that interpretation, but didn't offer an alternative one.
In a July 2015 call with prosecutors, Chavin said of Robert Durst, "My business depends upon goodwill with his brother, who hates him. I want to do everything in my power to ... have Douglas Durst feel the best about me."
Deputy District Attorney John Lewin followed up, asking, "If that were true, then, you would have _ then, you would have been telling us, from Day 1, 'Oh. yeah, Bob confessed to me' ... because according to your theory, that would put you in good graces with Doug Durst."
"It sure would," Chavin responded. "But, it would make me a liar."
Chavin, a longtime advertising executive in New York, says he knew Durst and Berman for decades. Durst was best man at Chavin's wedding, and dramatically changed the trajectory of Chavin's career by offering him a chance to work on advertising projects for the Durst Organization, the family-run company that is a dominant force in Manhattan real estate.
Chavin testified earlier that he did not initially believe Berman's claim that Durst had confessed to killing his wife. He said he had always believed Kathleen Durst was killed by a drug dealer. He downplayed Berman's comments during the 2015 interview with Los Angeles prosecutors.
Even in court Thursday, Chavin appeared torn over the issue of speaking out against Durst.
"As you sit here, do you still feel a bond _ and a warmth _ toward Bob Durst?" a prosecutor asked.
"It sounds ridiculous, but yes," he said. "This is a best friend who admitted to killing my other best friend."
Durst, 73, is unlikely to face trial until next year at the earliest, but prosecutors had asked to depose Chavin, whose identity had been shielded for months, because they feared he might be killed or could otherwise die before he got the chance to speak in front of a jury. Chavin was hustled into court earlier in the week as a "secret witness," flanked by Los Angeles police officers who have kept an eye on him from the courtroom's jury box.
