Death Threat to Silberman Told by Lawyer : Defense: Unidentified witness to support claim today during hearing in money-laundering case.

Prominent San Diego businessman Richard T. Silberman was warned to “keep going with this thing”--an alleged money-laundering scheme--or he and his family would be killed by a government informant, Silberman’s lawyer claimed Wednesday.

Informant Robert Benjamin threatened Silberman several times with “heavy, deliberate statements,” attorney James Brosnahan said after a hearing before a federal judge at which the lawyer repeatedly asked FBI agents whether they knew if Benjamin had a violent past. Agents--as well as federal prosecutors--said they knew of no threats to Silberman.

U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving scheduled a hearing today at which Brosnahan promised to produce a witness to elaborate. The identity of the witness was not disclosed, even to prosecutors, and Irving denied Brosnahan’s request that Benjamin also testify today.

Before discussing the threat allegations with reporters late Wednesday afternoon, Brosnahan repeatedly hinted at the warnings in open court Wednesday during a second full-day hearing on defense requests to dismiss federal money-laundering charges against Silberman, reputed mobster Chris Petti and three others.

At that hearing, Brosnahan also suggested that San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy, whose deputies took part in the investigation that led to Silberman’s arrest, should have disqualified himself from the probe because the sheriff and Silberman’s wife, County Supervisor Susan Golding, feuded publicly last year over control of the county jails.

Amid all the charges, a sheriff’s deputy and two FBI agents managed to testify about what happened in a Mission Bay hotel room last April 7 when they arrested Silberman. Brosnahan contended that Silberman’s rights were violated because he asked for and was denied access to a lawyer, but each of the three officers said that is untrue.

Brosnahan also had them describe in detail--down to Silberman’s asking permission to use the bathroom--the three hours the agents spent with Silberman in the hotel room after his arrest. One of Irving’s key decisions is whether an FBI report detailing Silberman’s behavior in those three hours will be available to prosecutors at the upcoming trial.

Silberman, Petti and the three others are charged with laundering $300,000 that an undercover agent allegedly characterized as proceeds from a Colombian drug dealer. Their trial is scheduled to begin in April.

Brosnahan’s hints at the threats were woven throughout Wednesday’s session, the second day of the major pretrial hearing in the case. Irving did not, however, let Brosnahan actually ask whether Benjamin had threatened Silberman, cutting off any line of questioning that touched on the issue. Irving gave no reason for banning those questions.

The judge also called all the lawyers into a private meeting during the morning in his chambers where, in part, threats were discussed, lawyers confirmed. Irving ordered that a transcript of that session be made public, but a court reporter said that might take some time to do.

In court, Brosnahan hinted at the threats as part of a request he made Tuesday that prosecutors give defense lawyers any information that might prove Silberman was innocent. Afterward, however, Brosnahan described the threats in some--though hardly complete--detail and said he was going that far solely to ensure the safety of Silberman and his family.

Calling Benjamin a “violent person,” Brosnahan said the informant “expressed that he knew where (Silberman’s family) lived and I have no doubt that’s true.” Though Brosnahan said Benjamin made the threats “several” times, the lawyer declined to specify the dates, times or places they were made.

The threats were verbal, but Benjamin has a “way of talking that conveys the immediacy of his thoughts,” Brosnahan said.

Silberman and Golding have taken added security precautions, Brosnahan said, though the lawyer did not explain what they were.

“I’ve asked my clients to do what they can,” Brosnahan said. “But there’s no such thing as 24-hour surveillance.”

“Without being too excited, we hold the government responsible” should Silberman or Golding--or Golding’s two children from a former marriage, who live with the couple--be attacked, Brosnahan added.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles F. Gorder Jr., the lead prosecutor in the case, said he “didn’t have any indication” that Benjamin had threatened Silberman. Gorder told Irving during Wednesday’s hearing that FBI agents checking Benjamin’s past turned up a 1974 domestic violence charge that had been dismissed and a 1975 armed robbery charge that also had been dismissed.

Brosnahan’s allegations, Gorder said after the hearing, were “a different story than I’ve heard before from Mr. Brosnahan. Before, it was an innocent stock deal,” referring to an alleged defense centering on a transaction that prosecutors claim was part of the complicated laundering scheme.

“I have not heard of any of this and I know of no evidence of it,” Gorder said. “To the extent Mr. Brosnahan can be specific about his charges,” federal agents will investigate them, he said.

Brosnahan also peppered his questions to FBI agents Charles Walker and Peter Ahearn, as well as to Sheriff’s Lt. William Sullivan, with references to Duffy, though, again, Irving did not let him pursue that line of questioning. All three men took part in Silberman’s arrest.

For instance, Brosnahan asked Walker, the agent who ran the investigation, whether Duffy was around the Mission Bay hotel at Silberman’s arrest. Walker said no. Brosnahan asked Sullivan whether he made progress reports about the probe to Duffy. Sullivan said yes.

Afterward, Brosnahan said he asked the questions because he “would have thought that Sheriff Duffy would have disqualified himself from an investigation involving the spouse of a person with whom he was involved in an antagonistic, public dialogue.”

Duffy said late Wednesday that was unnecessary. Though he and Golding may have butted heads at times about the crowded jails, which Duffy runs, the sheriff said he and Golding “haven’t had any serious disagreement.”

“There’s no basis for trying to concoct any sort of scheme that this investigation had anything to do with her at all,” Duffy said.

Duffy also said he had been subpoenaed by Brosnahan to Wednesday’s hearing but had not been called. But he said he would be of little use to Brosnahan because he had no first-hand knowledge of the Silberman case and knew only what his deputies had reported.

The two FBI agents said from the stand Wednesday that Silberman never asked them to stop questioning him at the Mission Bay hotel room so he could talk to a lawyer. Silberman knew that he was entitled to a lawyer because he not only had his rights read to him, he signed a written waiver of those rights, Walker said.

Prosecutors tried to show that Silberman was familiar with his constitutional rights because he had been “advised of his rights” on May 16, 1983, by San Diego police officers. No other details relating to that topic were revealed, however, because Irving stopped all questions, saying they were irrelevant to the money-laundering case.

Silberman, arrested at 1:57 p.m. last April 7, was “in control” and “rational” for all three hours at the hotel room, except when he made a phone call to Golding and became “very distraught and emotional,” Walker said. It was during that phone call, at 4:45 p.m., that for the first time, he asked to talk to a lawyer, telling Golding to call one, Walker said.