Lawyer Says Silberman Swallowed Pills

Richard T. Silberman lost consciousness in a hotel room here last weekend after swallowing an unknown number of prescription sleeping pills, his lawyer said Monday, just hours before the San Diego businessman and defendant in an upcoming money-laundering trial was released from the hospital.

The attorney, James Brosnahan, identified the pills as Halcion 2, a commonly prescribed sleeping medication. Asked how many pills Silberman ingested, Brosnahan said: “I have no comment on that because I don’t have all the facts yet.”

Dale Pugh, a spokesman at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where Silberman was rushed on Saturday evening, said that toxicology and blood tests are incomplete.

According to health officials, Halcion 2 is a sleeping pill that would have to be taken in a large dosage to result in unconsciousness.

Silberman, who is scheduled to stand trial in April on charges stemming from a highly publicized and complex money-laundering case, was found by police at the Las Vegas Hilton early Saturday night. He was found after a two-day search that began when Silberman, a former top aide to Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., told his family he was leaving San Diego to have dinner and meet with an attorney in Orange County. Instead, Silberman flew from Lindbergh Field to Los Angeles, then took a flight to Las Vegas.

He left the the hospital about 4 p.m. Monday, looking pale and uncomfortable, and walking very slowly. He was joined by his wife, San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding. Outside the hospital, he kissed her on the cheek, then they left for the airport in Brosnahan’s blue rental car.

As reporters followed the couple out of the medical center, Brosnahan said: “You might want to give Mr. Silberman a little room. He’s had a tough, tough time.”

Silberman said nothing.

He has been under pressure in recent months, culminating with the release last week of an FBI report that alleges he confessed to participating in a money-laundering operation.

Silberman, reputed San Diego mobster Chris Petti and three other men are charged with laundering $300,000 they thought was illegal drug money from Colombian traffickers. The cash was actually put up by an undercover FBI agent as part of an elaborate sting operation that was revealed upon Silberman’s arrest last April 7.

Brosnahan said that a federal judge’s comment that the alleged confession was “self-incriminating” for Silberman prompted his client’s disappearance.

The lawyer said the turn of events in the Silberman case could provide even more reason for a new judge to be assigned to it or for the trial to be heard outside San Diego County, where there has been very heavy media attention.

Despite the circumstances surrounding Silberman’s disappearance and subsequent rescue, his lawyer insisted that the public should not conclude that the episode was a ruse or an attempt by Silberman to win sympathy.

“They would be absolutely wrong about that,” Brosnahan said. “The police officer in Las Vegas, the judgment of the doctors here at the hospital who have treated him, both in the emergency ward on Saturday night and upstairs on the fifth floor all day Sunday, the judgment of the nurses and all of that, make it very clear there is no possibility of such a thing.”