FBI Says Silberman Confessed After Arrest : Crime: The bureau’s report was released after a federal appellate court rejected a request from Silberman’s lawyers to keep it secret.

Prominent San Diego businessman Richard T. Silberman confessed to FBI agents just after his arrest that he had arranged the receipt and laundering of $300,000 that he believed was drug money, according to an FBI report made public Friday.

Silberman, indicted with four others on federal charges of money laundering, said he went through with two deals--one for $100,000 and a second for $200,000--because he wanted to help his failing gold mining company, Yuba Natural Resources, the report says.

Silberman told the agents that he knew the deals were “stupid,” according to the report, but he “wanted to avoid the humiliation that would have resulted if his company had gone under.” However, “Silberman said that he now realizes that there will be even more humiliation from his actions.”

Silberman, 60, was reported missing Friday, just hours before the seven-page report was made public. He was last seen Thursday at Lindbergh Field.

The FBI narrative, detailing Silberman’s behavior in the three hours immediately after he was arrested last April 7 in a Mission Bay hotel room, was released late Friday, after a federal appellate court rejected a request from Silberman’s San Francisco lawyers to keep it secret.

The report became accessible only after defense attorneys inadvertently filed it with legal briefs in December in downtown San Diego federal court. Documents filed with the court clerk are considered public record.

However, only an edited version was released. U. S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving ordered that the report could be released only after it was purged of references to other federal investigations or to people who were not involved in the FBI sting that led to Silberman’s arrest.

About a page and a half of the seven-page document was blank when issued. Lawyers in the case, quoted in other court documents, are reported to have said that Silberman volunteered information to the FBI about Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, but what Silberman may have said about Brown has not been disclosed.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Friday that Irving was right to order an edited version made public, saying Silberman’s attorneys had failed to show that release of the report would prejudice his right to a fair trial.

Silberman, who is married to San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, is accused, along with reputed mobster Chris Petti and three other men, of laundering $300,000 that an undercover agent told Silberman was the proceeds of Colombian drug trafficking. Silberman is scheduled to begin trial April 10, while the other four are due to go to trial July 17.

Prosecutors allege that when Silberman, a powerful player in state and local Democratic politics for 15 years, was arrested, he was arranging to launder $1.1 million in funds portrayed to him as the proceeds of cocaine sales. The two transactions involving the $300,000 were to be test runs for the bigger deal, prosecutors say, and Silberman made little money from them.

Immediately after Silberman was arrested, he was read his rights and signed a form in which he agreed to waive those rights, the FBI report says. For the next three hours, he talked to the agents, it says.

According to the report, Silberman said he had known Petti about 15 years, having first met him at a barber shop at a Mission Valley hotel.

Petti and Silberman had “no criminal association” until October, 1988, when Silberman “approached Petti about finding individuals who would be interested in moving cash out of the country, with no record, using his (Silberman’s) gold mining ventures,” the report says.

Silberman said he made the request because he “had been having trouble raising investment capital from normal channels,” the report says. He explained to Petti that “any investments in the gold-mining company could be done discreetly so as to conceal the source of the money and that, given time, the investment could be very profitable and could be cashed out in Canada with no records in the U.S.”

Petti said he would get back to Silberman and, a week or two later, met with him and Robert Benjamin, the report says. Benjamin was a government informant, prosecutors have said.

At that meeting--no date is given in the report, but prosecutors have said it took place Nov. 9, 1988, at a Mission Valley hotel coffee shop--Silberman went into further detail, the report says. There were shares in his gold mining company, held in banks in Switzerland, that he could obtain at a “reduced rate” and that could be sold to one of Benjamin’s friends.

Silberman discussed how the three of them could clear a profit selling the shares to “Benjamin’s guy,” according to the report. In turn, Benjamin’s acquaintance could sell the shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

“Benjamin’s guy” turned out to be a man Silberman would know as “Pete Carmassi,” who was actually undercover FBI agent Pete Ahearn.

Silberman said that, after he met Carmassi, he “became aware that the source of Carmassi’s funds was from drug trafficking,” the report says.

Still, prosecutors allege, Silberman went ahead with the first deal Nov. 30, 1988, a $100,000 transaction.

Darryl Naka, accompanied by Jack Myers, picked up the money at a Los Angeles Hilton, the report says. Prosecutors have said the money was picked up at the Airport Hilton in Los Angeles.

Naka, 43, of West Los Angeles, whose real name is Darryl Nakatsuka, and Jack Myers, 42, of Beverly Hills, are two of the three other men indicted.

The third is Terry Ziegler, 45, of Moorpark in Ventura County. Silberman said the $100,000 was sent to a bank account in Basel, Switzerland, wired by Ziegler, who was relaying instructions from Silberman through Myers, according to the report.

After the cash was received in Switzerland, a 50,000-share stock certificate in Yuba American Gold Ltd., a Yuba Natural subsidiary, was mailed to his San Diego office, Silberman reportedly told the FBI agents. About $94,000 of the $100,000 had actually been wired to Switzerland for the stock, the report says.

Prosecutors have contended that the money made its way to Switzerland only after being deposited in various amounts in Southern California banks and being wired first to Hong Kong. An undercover FBI agent eventually was given the stock certificate, prosecutors have said.

Silberman told the FBI agents that he had never met Ziegler and knew of him only through Myers, according to the report. Myers was a “political fund-raiser who seemed to know everyone” and whom Silberman, a longtime Democratic Party fund-raiser, had known for years.

The second transaction began Feb. 22, 1989, when Naka and Myers picked up $200,000, the report says. This deal was supposed to be a swap for U.S. Treasury bonds, prosecutors have said.

Silberman said he received about $4,000 of that $200,000, according to the report. He paid Petti $6,500 for arranging the first deal, it says, giving it to him in two payments at a downtown San Diego coffee shop.

Silberman said he never gave any money to Benjamin because he believed that Carmassi would pay him, the report says.

There was a complication with the second deal, Silberman reportedly told the agents. Myers had originally said it would cost a point to sell the bonds and a point to buy them back, the report says. A point is usually 1% of a deal.

But, after the money was delivered, Myers told him Ziegler had changed his fee and “wouldn’t come up with the right number of bonds.”

After the problem came up, Silberman said, he told Myers the money was “coming from people in Colombia who were involved in drug trafficking,” according to the report. Silberman also said he did not understand why Ziegler would “do something so stupid” as to not complete the deal as agreed.

So, Silberman said, he turned to Petti, figuring that Ziegler “had swindled them” and there would be no further deals with Carmassi if the problem wasn’t resolved, the report says. Petti, Silberman told the agents, “agreed to handle this matter in his own way.”

The report does not say if or how the matter was resolved.

It concludes by detailing a phone call Silberman made to Golding near the end of the three-hour session, during which he “became distraught and expressed his sorrow and regret at having just been arrested by the FBI.”

Silberman “repeated to his wife several times that he . . . had gotten caught in a deal to raise money,” the report says. And for the first time since he was arrested, it says, he asked for a lawyer, telling her to call one.

* FEARS FOR SAFETY: Before his car was found at Lindbergh Field, Silberman’s attorneys said they feared for his safety because of earlier threats. B3