Silberman Is Arrested in Drug-Money Case : S.D. Businessman and Democratic Fund-Raiser Served as Key Aide to Former Gov. Jerry Brown

FBI agents on Friday arrested Richard T. Silberman, a prominent San Diego businessman and powerful California Democratic Party fund-raiser, on suspicion of laundering money that undercover agents told him came from Colombian narcotics traffickers.

Silberman, who held a succession of posts under former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. from 1977 to 1979--including chief of staff--was taken into custody in mid-afternoon while negotiating to launder $1.1 million from an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of the narcotic traffickers, Thomas A. Hughes, special agent in charge of the San Diego FBI office, said at an evening press conference.

Silberman, 59, will be held at the federal Metropolitan Correction Center in downtown San Diego until he is arraigned on a federal money-laundering charge early next week. Silberman’s wife, Susan Golding, the chairwoman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and a potential Republican Party candidate for lieutenant governor next year, was said to have no knowledge of the alleged laundering, Hughes said.

2 1/2-Year Inquiry

In the culmination of a 2 1/2-year investigation, FBI agents also arrested Chris George Poulos, 62, of San Diego, commonly known as Chris Petti, and were seeking the arrest of Jack N. Myers, 43, and Darryl Nakatsuka, 42, both of Los Angeles, on similar allegations of money laundering. Hughes described Petti as an associate of the Chicago Cosa Nostra, an organized crime group whose operations in Southern California and Nevada had triggered the investigation.

Petti was also being held in MCC Friday night. Hughes said that Myers and Nakatsuka were involved in the money laundering as intermediaries between Silberman and the undercover agent.

Using search warrants obtained through submission of an FBI affidavit that is expected to be unsealed Monday, FBI agents late Friday searched the offices of Yuba Natural Resources of San Diego, a publicly traded company that invests in the mining of precious metals. Silberman is chairman of the company.

Agents also conducted searches at the offices of Adams Investments, also known as Hamilton-Williams & Co. in Westlake Village, and at the First Transnational Co. in Los Angeles, Hughes said.

Intelligence officers from both the San Diego police and county sheriff’s departments participated in the investigation, Hughes said.

Reason for Inquiry

Hughes said the investigation began as an effort to pierce the activities of Petti, whom the FBI alleges takes direction from the Chicago Cosa Nostra. Petti is well-known to San Diego law enforcement officials, and was described in 1986 as the top organized crime figure in San Diego by the Nevada Gaming Control Board in recommending that he be barred from casinos in that state.

Hughes said that Silberman first came to the attention of FBI agents in October, 1988. The agents were employing a variety of covert methods to investigate Petti, including undercover agents and the first use of the so-called “roving tap” authorized in 1986 congressional legislation. That tap allows federal agents to monitor any telephone used by the target of a wiretap investigation authorized by a federal court.

“Mr. Silberman entered the case by approaching Chris Petti and wanting to conduct money laundering,” Hughes said. Hughes said that Petti introduced Silberman to an FBI undercover agent who had infiltrated Petti’s operation posing as a Colombian drug-trafficker representative with responsibility for money laundering.

Hughes said that Silberman “sought out” the undercover agent and offered to provide a money-laundering service. Both Petti and Silberman persuaded the undercover agent to launder money through him, Hughes said.

On Nov. 30, 1988, Silberman accepted $100,000 from the undercover agent through intermediaries, thinking that the proceeds were from narcotics operations, Hughes said. On Feb. 22, of this year, Silberman again made a transaction, this time for $200,000, “for money-laundering purposes,” Hughes said.

‘Test’ Deliveries

Hughes said the $100,000 and $300,000 amounts were “test” deliveries leading to the negotiations for the $1.1 million that were under way when Silberman was arrested Friday. Hughes declined to say Friday what the source of the laundered money was.

Hughes said that Yuba Resources “enters into the picture in a convoluted way” but refused to comment until the affidavit is unsealed next week. He also declined to provide additional details about the two Los Angeles-area companies that were searched Friday, except to say that money was laundered through Hamilton-Williams/Adams Investments.

Hughes did say that persons associated with Silberman in laundering money through Hamilton-Williams apparently “shorted” Silberman in delivering unspecified securities that were of less value than the dollar amounts delivered by the undercover agent. Hughes said that Silberman then turned to Petti in an “effort to muscle delivery of the shorted funds.”

Hughes said that Silberman, both in telephone taps and in statements to others that the FBI is aware of, spoke of having laundered money in the past.

In 1988, a federal judge in San Diego denied a request by Petti to end his probation on bookmaking charges.

Petti had asked for the end to the probation, saying he had been a model probationer. Petti was relased from prison in June, 1984, after serving nine months of a year-plus-one-day sentence for conviction of conspiracy of bookmaking in connection with a pro-football betting ring. Federal court documents said the bookmaking had ties with organized crime in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Petti did win a federal court battle in 1986 in the same case, when a judge denied a request by prosecutors to revoke the probation and return Petti to prison on the grounds that he violated terms of probation by associating with known gambling figures.

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Anthony Perry, Armando Acuna and Greg Johnson.