Robert Durst sick with Covid-19, and on a ventilator, following life sentence, lawyer says

New York real estate heir Robert Durst has tested positive for Covid-19 and is currently connected to a ventilator, his attorney said.

“All we know he’s tested positive for Covid-19, he’s in hospital and on a ventilator,” Dick DeGuerin told NBC News on a phone call. “He looked awful Thursday, worst I’ve ever seen him. He was having difficulty breathing, he was having difficulty speaking.”

His diagnosis comes the same week he was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a friend more than 20 years ago, in a slaying possibly tied to the killer’s missing wife.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham handed down that punishment one month after jurors convicted Durst, 78, of first-degree murder for the Dec. 23, 2000, death of Susan Berman. Berman was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head inside her Benedict Canyon home. Durst’s lawyers plan to appeal the judge’s decision.

DeGuerin said he believes Durst was vaccinated, but didn’t know if he had a Covid-19 vaccine booster.

Grace Medrano, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, told NBC News in an email that they can’t answer medical questions related to Durst’s health citing HIPAA privacy rules, which establishes national standards to protect an individual’s medical records and other personal health information. Medrano also declined to disclose Durst’s vaccination status.

This is not the first time Durst’s health has been an issue since during the trial.

He was briefly hospitalized in June following “some incident this morning involving his health,” Windham said at the time. The judge also denied DeGuerin’s request to postpone the trial because Durst was battling bladder cancer and other health problems, according to DeGuerin.

Durst was also not in court the day jurors convicted him of Berman’s murder last month because he had been exposed to someone who tested positive for Covid-19, according to the Los Angeles Times, who first reported Durst’s latest Covid-related hospitalization.