Silberman Is Found, Hospitalized in Vegas : Search: Police say missing financier, who is facing trial on federal money-laundering charges, was unconscious in hotel room.

Two days after he disappeared, San Diego financier Richard T. Silberman was located by police late Saturday afternoon in a Las Vegas hotel room, where he was found unconscious and lying fully clothed on the bed.

Lt. Randy Oaks, a Las Vegas police spokesman, said one of his detectives used a passkey to enter the fifth-floor room at the posh Las Vegas Hilton about 5:15 p.m. after Silberman, a former state Democratic Party official under indictment on federal money-laundering charges, failed to come to the door.

“The detective found Mr. Silberman lying in an unconscious state on the bed and brought him to a conscious state,” Oaks said. “Then he summoned medical attention.”

Although a San Diego police spokesman speculated that Silberman was under the influence of “some kind of substance,” Las Vegas authorities said Saturday night that it was unclear if that was the case.

Officials at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, where Silberman was listed in serious but stable condition, were still performing toxicology tests late Saturday night. He was expected to remain in the medical center overnight.

“Our detective found nothing in the way of leftover residue, pills or anything of that nature,” Oaks said. “It appeared to him that Mr. Silberman entered that room with nothing more than the clothes on his back.”

Oaks added that the detective did find a note in the room that Silberman had written, which the lieutenant would only describe as “a writing of some kind.”

Police said Silberman was alone when he checked into the room Thursday night, using his own name.

Silberman, 60, a former official in Gov. Jerry Brown’s Administration in the late 1970s, is scheduled to stand trial in April on federal money-laundering charges. He has experienced severe financial difficulties since his arrest 10 months ago, and he could face up to 75 years in prison and a $2.75 million fine, if convicted.

Police in Las Vegas said Silberman’s wife, Susan Golding, a son and daughter-in-law rushed there and joined him at the hospital Saturday night, along with his personal physician and criminal defense attorney.

They could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Silberman vanished Thursday afternoon after he told his family that he was going to Orange County to have dinner and meet with an attorney. But he never made that meeting, and a missing person report was filed.

He was last seen Thursday evening at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field airport, where he purchased a ticket for a 6 p.m. flight to Los Angeles.

V. Wayne Kennedy, an administration official at UC San Diego, said Saturday that he saw Silberman at the airport Thursday evening “around 6 p.m. or a little before,” but did not get the chance to speak to him.

“He was walking in the airport and I was walking out,” Kennedy said. He added that Silberman was alone and did not appear to be preoccupied or distraught.

San Diego Police Cmdr. Larry Gore said police Friday could not determine whether Silberman boarded the plane to Los Angeles. But on Saturday, he said, police interviewed a person they declined to identify who saw Silberman at Los Angeles International Airport.

By checking flight records, police learned that Silberman was traveling alone, under his own name. Detectives then traced him to Las Vegas. From there, San Diego and Las Vegas officers began checking hotel guest registers.