Silberman Leaves Hospital, Expected to Return Home

Indicted businessman Richard T. Silberman, whose two-day disappearance ended when he was found unconscious in a Las Vegas hotel room, walked out the hospital Monday and was expected to return to San Diego to resume his fight against federal money-laundering charges.

Silberman was released from the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada about 4 p.m.

He walked out with his arm around his wife, San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, and kissed her just before they got into a rental car driven by San Francisco attorney James Brosnahan.

Silberman declined to answer reporters’ questions. Golding also declined comment and asked a television cameramen to back away as the couple walked to the car. The couple gave no indication of where they were going.

Silberman had been at the hospital since police found him suffering from an apparent drug overdose in a room at the Las Vegas Hilton. Police had been searching for the San Diego financier since he was reported missing Friday by his wife.

Las Vegas authorities have said there is not enough information to indicate if Silberman tried to commit suicide.

Bill Robinson, a spokesman for the San Diego Police Department, said that Silberman was not considered a fugitive.

Brosnahan, who spoke to reporters Monday morning, would not comment on why Silberman had fled to Las Vegas, although he has said that Silberman’s disappearance and current condition resulted from alleged prejudicial statements made by a federal judge.

He said Silberman had become upset after reading a newspaper story in which the judge was quoted as saying comments Silberman made to FBI agents immediately after his arrest last April were “self-incriminating.”

Brosnahan said there had been no change in any court appearance for Silberman, although he indicated the three-day weekend may have had some effect on that decision.

We’re “looking at the effect of the situation on future court appearances,” Brosnahan said.

The attorney has indicated that U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving may be biased against Silberman, but has not said if he will ask for a new judge to preside over Silberman’s scheduled April 10 trial.

He said Irving overstepped his judicial powers when he found in a pretrial decision that Silberman incriminated himself.

“There was no hearing for it,” Brosnahan said Sunday. “There was no legal basis for it. . . . The papers and the judge in San Diego want him crucified.”

Irving could not be reached for comment Monday.

Silberman remains free on $500,000 bail posted earlier. He turned in his passport but had no travel restrictions within the United States.

He is accused of participating in a money-laundering scheme with reputed San Diego mobster Chris Petti and three others involving $300,000 from an undercover FBI agent who was posing as an associate of Colombian cocaine traffickers.