Robert Durst's second wife sued as executor of estate by first wife's siblings

The siblings of Kathie Durst are suing Robert Durst's second wife, who they believe was promised his fortune for helping him "evade justice" in their sister's killing.

The lawsuit against Debrah Charatan as executor of Durst's estate was filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, the 40th anniversary of Kathie Durst's disappearance.

Charatan filed Durst's 2010 will in a Texas court on Jan. 14, four days after he died in a California hospital.

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A lawyer for Kathie Durst's three sisters and a brother said they expect Charatan to collect Durst's millions as the beneficiary.

Although the lawsuit mentions nothing about Charatan's actions, the lawyer, Robert Abrams, called it "an important step toward justice for Kathie and toward exposing the corruption that allowed Robert Durst to go unpunished."

Neither Charatan nor two lawyers who have represented her could be reached for comment.

Abrams issued a statement from the siblings in which they recalled Kathie's kindness, compassion and courage.

"The courage that propelled her from humble beginnings through nursing school and then medical school," they said. "The courage that inspired her to stand up to her abusive husband and his powerful family. The courage that ultimately cost Kathie her life."

Kathie Durst was believed to have been killed by her husband in the couple's South Salem cottage but her body has never been found. She was 29 and in the final year of medical school at the time.

Robert Durst was charged with second-degree murder in Westchester just three months ago after he was sentenced to life in prison for the 2000 killing of his best friend Susan Berman in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles prosecutors convinced jurors that Durst silenced Berman to keep her from revealing what she knew he had done to his wife.

Berman had served as an unofficial spokeswoman for Durst after Kathie disappeared. And she is believed to have pretended to be Kathie in a phone call to the dean of Albert Einstein College of Medicine the morning of Feb. 1, 1982, to report she was too sick to attend her first day of a pediatric rotation.

Charatan, a real estate broker, was a friend of Durst's for about a dozen years when she married him in December 2000 in a quick ceremony in a Manhattan office building. That was a month after Durst learned that investigators in Westchester had reopened the investigation into his wife's disappearance and less than two weeks before he killed Berman.

Durst had quietly divorced Kathie in Westchester in 1990, claiming spousal abandonment.

He gave power of attorney to Charatan, who sent him the bail money the following year when he was charged with murder in the dismemberment death of a neighbor, Morris Black, in Galveston, Texas, where Durst was laying low posed as a mute woman.

He was found not guilty of murder in 1993 after testifying that he fatally shot Black in self-defense as they wrestled over a gun.

Durst was the oldest son of real estate magnate Seymour Durst. But he was mostly estranged from his family after his brother Douglas was tapped in the 1990s to head the Durst Organization, one of Manhattan's wealthiest real estate empires.

Durst's worth was estimated in 2015 at $100 million. He settled a lawsuit against the family trusts for a reported $65 million in 2006.

Attempts over the last decade to sue Durst, Charatan and even the Durst Organization were unsuccessful, primarily because the statute of limitations on wrongful death lawsuits had expired.

But the new lawsuit cites language from an earlier one suggesting that Kathie's siblings could file a new claim if "a criminal action is commenced" against Durst related to his wife's death.

That occurred when the second-degree murder charge was filed in Westchester.

Durst's will leaves his estate to Charatan and names her as executor. It was filed in Harric County probate court. Durst lived in an apartment in Houston.

Twitter: @jonbandler

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Kathie Durst's siblings target Robert Durst's millions in lawsuit