Mr. Durst’s first wife, Kathleen, disappeared in 1982, and the authorities believe he killed Ms. Berman to ensure she did not reveal what she knew about what happened to Ms. Durst.

Over the years, Mr. Durst, who is worth more than $100 million, has benefited from some of the best defense lawyers money could buy. He was never charged in the disappearance of his first wife.

In 2003, a jury in Galveston, Tex., acquitted him of murder charges, despite his testimony explaining how he cut up the body of a neighbor, Morris Black, and threw the parts into Galveston Bay. The head is still missing.

In an interview before his arrest, Mr. Durst said that he had no idea where the head is. “I just threw the garbage bags off the pier,” he said. “I could barely lift them. I expected them to sink.”

Mr. Durst claimed that Mr. Black’s death was an accident that occurred while the two men grappled over a gun. Investigators in California, New York and Texas do not believe it was self-defense. Mr. Durst later pleaded guilty to charges of jumping bond and evidence tampering in connection with the case.

Mr. Durst and his defense team, led by Mr. DeGuerin, appear to have miscalculated in New Orleans. The defense had argued that the search of Mr. Durst’s hotel room by two F.B.I. agents was illegal and that the evidence they turned up, in particular the revolver, should be thrown out.

Federal prosecutors and investigators from Los Angeles disputed that account and countered that a second, independent search, conducted hours later by Los Angeles detectives, was unquestionably legal.