Silberman Is Missing; Car Found at Airport : Crime: The San Diego businessman, facing a trial on federal charges of money laundering, was last seen waiting in line to buy an airline ticket to Los Angeles.

Two months before he is scheduled to stand trial on federal money-laundering charges, former state Democratic official Richard T. Silberman was reported missing Friday. He had told his family he was going to attend a dinner meeting Thursday night with an Orange County attorney.

Instead, his 1975, light-blue Mercedes-Benz was recovered in a parking lot at Lindbergh Field, where he last was seen Thursday evening waiting in line to purchase a ticket to Los Angeles International Airport.

He vanished at a time when he was facing multiple charges that, if he were convicted, would carry a maximum term of 75 years in prison and $2.75 million in fines.

His disappearance came on the same day that an FBI report was released reporting that Silberman had confessed to the money laundering, saying he had done it to save his business.

The 60-year-old businessman, who was a top official in the administration of Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., left his La Jolla home about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, after telling family members that he was going to Orange County to have dinner and meet with an attorney there, according to police reports.

Silberman’s wife, San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, told police that she spoke with the attorney Friday morning and learned that he had not seen her husband. Golding then alerted police.

“We’re going to process the car, obviously, and then we’ll be doing some follow-up investigation in terms of witnesses and so forth,” San Diego Police Cmdr. Larry Gore said. “The car has been impounded, and we do know he was observed either purchasing a ticket or in the line for a ticket on USAir for a 6 o’clock flight to Los Angeles.”

Silberman’s ultimate destination was unknown, but Carol Lam, an assistant U.S. attorney involved with the case, said court records showed that he was ordered to surrender his passport when he was released on $500,000 bail last April. However, it was unknown whether he actually had turned in the passport.

On Friday morning, before his car was discovered, Silberman’s lawyers said they had no reason to think he was a fugitive. Instead, they said, they were worried for his safety.

Gore, asked whether Silberman might have been trying to leave the country, said: “That’s a scenario. But there are lots of scenarios. And it looks like we’re going to be at this thing for a long time.”

Silberman also has faced financial troubles.

His company, Yuba Natural Resources, had been ailing before his arrest last April 7, and three days later he was replaced as executive officer. The company also was under siege in the civil courts, facing lawsuits from creditors and a $500,000 judgment from the federal government for mining for gold on land it did not own.

Further, after his indictment, Silberman was not reappointed to his $40,000-a-year post on the California Medical Assistance Commission.

In a hearing Friday morning in federal court here, prosecutors asked that Silberman’s bond be forfeited because of the disappearance. U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving rejected the request because not enough was known at that time about the disappearance. That was before Silberman’s car was found.

Silberman, reputed San Diego mobster Chris Petti and three other men are awaiting trial on seven felony counts of laundering $300,000 they allegedly believed were proceeds from illicit drug sales. The money was provided by a man who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

The charges shocked officials throughout the state, many of whom remembered Silberman for heading the state Business and Transportation Agency in 1977 under Gov. Brown. He later was named finance director and, temporarily, chief of staff for the governor’s office.

As the case has wound its way through federal court here, Silberman and his attorney, James Brosnahan, have contended that Silberman feared for his life because of his involvement with alleged mob figures in the undercover sting operation.

Just last week, Brosnahan claimed that Silberman was warned to “keep going” with the money-laundering scheme or he and his family would be killed. The lawyer said the threat was made by Robert Benjamin, an ex-convict turned government informant.

At the same time, Brosnahan had sought to keep under wraps an FBI report of statements that Silberman allegedly gave to FBI agents when he was arrested. That report, released Friday, stated that Silberman confessed to federal agents that he had arranged to receive $300,000 of the bogus drug money and directed four men to help him launder it.

The report said Silberman admitted participating in two deals to launder the money because he wanted to help his ailing Yuba gold mining company.

Silberman said he knew the deals were “stupid,” the report said, but he “wanted to avoid the humiliation that would have resulted if his company had gone under.”

Also in federal court Friday, Silberman’s lawyers claimed that a mystery witness who testified last week in pretrial hearings had been shot at Tuesday near Newport Beach.

While the witness--identified in court only as Mr. X--was driving Tuesday, four shots were fired at him from a person in a passing vehicle, lawyer George C. Harris said. None of the shots hit Mr. X, Harris said.

Federal marshals reported back to Irving later Friday that Mr. X was not interested in their protection, Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles F. Gorder Jr. said.

Gore, the police commander, said detectives first learned of Silberman’s disappearance when Golding notified authorities that her husband never made the dinner meeting Thursday night in Orange County.

Police said that Silberman left his home about 4:30 in La Jolla, then was seen about 5:05 p.m. Thursday by Andrea Ward-Sumida, an employee at RDF Advisors, a San Diego firm situated in the 5700 block of Oberlin Drive. The firm is owned by a personal friend of Silberman’s, Ward-Sumida said Friday, and he often visited the offices.

She added that she had no idea where he was going when he left the company suite, and she declined to discuss his disappearance.

“This has caught everybody off guard,” she said. “There are a lot of emotions involved, and I’m just not at liberty to talk about it.”

Gore said that, after Silberman left the offices, he telephoned his daughter, Vanessa, from his car telephone. That was about 5:30 p.m., police said, adding that he then headed toward the airport to buy his ticket to Los Angeles.

Whether he had a destination past Los Angeles is not known.

Gorder, the lead prosecutor, said Friday night that it was his understanding that Silberman was restricted only from leaving the United States. Asked whether he believes Silberman fled the country to avoid prosecution, Gorder said:

“It’s certainly a possibility, but I’ll wait to see the results of the police investigation until I draw any conclusions.”

The official police missing-person report notes that Silberman was wearing a dark-blue, double-breasted coat, a blue tie with white dots, gray slacks and black shoes. The report lists his bank accounts as “numerous,” the credit cards he carried as “numerous” and the reason he was missing as “unknown.”

Supervisor Golding could not be reached for comment Friday and spent most of the day inside her home with Brosnahan, who flew to San Diego from San Francisco. About 6 p.m. Friday, her father walked outside the gate of the home and told reporters that his daughter would have no statements about the disappearance.

The police report made this notation:

“Ms. Golding feels this is very unusual for her husband not to at least call her to tell her he would not be home for the evening.”

CONFESSION: Silberman admitted arranging laundering deal, FBI says. B1