Silberman Swallowed Sleeping Pills

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

Attorney James Brosnahan identified the pills as Halcion 2, a commonly prescribed sleeping medication.

Asked how many pills Silberman ingested, he said, “I have no comment on that because I don’t have all the facts yet.”

The lawyer also declined to specify whether his information about the pills came from police or medical officials.

“It was several sources,” Brosnahan said. “That’s what I’ve been told. I don’t want to say any more beyond that.”

Dale Pugh, a spokesman for University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where Silberman was rushed Saturday evening, said toxicology and blood tests are not yet complete.

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

“There is a potential of an overdose if it’s taken with alcohol or other depressants, or by itself if taken in sufficient quantity,” said a Mercy Hospital pharmacist, who asked not to be identified. “A couple extra . . . wouldn’t be a big problem.”

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 lying in bed, naked above the waist and unconscious.

He was discovered in his fifth-floor room 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 Delta Airlines flight to Las Vegas.

He left 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, and they then left for the airport in Brosnahan’s rental car.

As reporters followed Silberman and Golding 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, declining to respond to reporters asking how he felt.

“There will be no statement from anyone at this time,” Brosnahan said. “There may be one later.”

Many questions remain about Silberman’s two-day odyssey. He has been under intense 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 allegedly believed 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 maintains that a federal judge’s comment that the alleged confession was “self-incriminating” prompted his client’s disappearance. The lawyer said the strange turn of events in the 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 heavy media attention.

“We haven’t decided on all of that yet,” Brosnahan said. “But it is my personal belief that the court system didn’t assure Mr. Silberman a fair trial by waiting until the trial, when both sides can present their evidence.”

Las Vegas Police Lt. Ron Oaks said Silberman’s condition was life-threatening when he was found in his hotel room Saturday night.

Oaks also said that Silberman checked into the Hilton off the Las Vegas Strip about 6 p.m. Thursday, a time verified by a hotel computer printout.

However, that conflicts with the time Silberman left San Diego on Thursday evening. His Lindbergh Field parking ticket shows he arrived at the airport about 5:45 p.m. And San Diego police said he left the airport on a 6:05 p.m. flight to Los Angeles, where he then took the flight to Las Vegas.

Brosnahan said that while Silberman’s hotel tab shows a 6 p.m. check-in time, his client did not arrive at the hotel until much closer to midnight Thursday.

“It (the tab) had a time which makes no sense,” Brosnahan said. “It had a time of 6 something in the evening on Thursday. I just think their records are wrong. That’s all it could be.”

Despite that and other odd circumstances surrounding the incident--the lack of information about the pills and whether Silberman indeed tried to kill himself--Brosnahan insisted that the public should not draw the conclusion that it was a ruse or an attempt 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.”