Petti Will Be Released From Prison Today : Silberman case: Reputed mobster served two-thirds of a sentence for violating probation. He must confine calls to his family and lawyer because of his phone use in alleged money-laundering scheme.

Chris Petti, a reputed mob figure indicted with San Diego financier Richard T. Silberman on money-laundering charges, is due to be released today from a federal prison after serving about two-thirds of an 18-month sentence imposed for violating his probation.

In a brief hearing held behind closed doors after the conclusion of another day of jury selection in Silberman’s trial, federal District Judge J. Lawrence Irving set Petti’s bail at $250,000.

An unusual condition of the bail is that Petti is not allowed to use a telephone except to call his family or his lawyer, Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles F. Gorder Jr. said after emerging from the closed-door hearing. The bond was secured in part by a house in Arizona that belongs to Petti’s brother, Gorder said.

Petti’s lawyer, Oscar Goodman of Las Vegas, said he expected Petti to immediately post a second $10,000 bond that Irving imposed as further security of return to San Diego. Petti has been held since last May at the Terminal Island federal prison, near Los Angeles, after violating his probation in a federal bookmaking case.

Petti, who has been linked to organized crime in Chicago and Las Vegas, was convicted in 1984 of bookmaking--in a case that covered the 1980-81 football season--and sentenced to five years’ probation.

He was released from prison in 1984, after serving just under nine months of his year-and-a-day sentence.

In April, 1989, he and Silberman, along with several others, were arrested in an FBI sting. Prosecutors allege that they laundered $300,000 that an undercover FBI agent had characterized as the proceeds of Colombian drug trafficking.

Though the others were released on bail, Petti was held because of his probation status, and court testimony later showed he never paid any of the $250,000 in fines levied in the bookmaking conviction.

Last May, Petti was convicted of violating probation and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He is due to be released today, however, under rules that mandate release after the service of about two-thirds of a sentence, Gorder said.

It was via Petti that Silberman was arrested, according to prosecutors. In October, 1988, Silberman, who had known Petti for years, asked him for help in finding people who would be “interested in moving cash out of the country, with no record,” the FBI contends.

Through government informant Robert Benjamin, Petti already had met an FBI undercover agent, Peter Ahearn, who was posing as Pete Carmassi, a representative of Colombian cocaine dealers. At a November, 1988, meeting, Petti introduced Carmassi to Silberman, setting in motion what prosecutors claim was the scheme to launder $300,000.

Much of what FBI agents learned about the case was developed through wiretaps aimed at Petti, including taps on pay phones they suspected Petti commonly used to try to avoid being detected.

Petti’s heavy reliance on the phone, documented in hundreds of pages of affidavits filed with the court, explained Irving’s order on Thursday restricting his calls to family or Goodman, Gorder said.

Irving also restricted Petti’s travel to California and said Petti was forbidden from any contact with Benjamin except in Goodman’s presence, Gorder said.

Petti and two other men, Jack Norman Myers and Darryl Nakatsuka, both of Los Angeles, are scheduled to stand trial together July 17. Myers and Nakatsuka remain free on bail.

Los Angeles-area investment broker Terry Ziegler, who also had been set to go to trial on July 17, pleaded guilty April 10 to one criminal count of violating federal currency laws. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 18.

Trial for Silberman, 61, who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., began last week with jury selection. The first phase of the lengthy selection process--formal interviews in open court with potential jurors about the intense publicity the case has attracted--concluded Thursday as Irving seated 28 people who said they could be fair.

The selection process is to resume today with Gorder and lead defense attorney James J. Brosnahan aiming to winnow those 28 to the 12 who actually will hear the case. Under the rules, Gorder may arbitrarily excuse six potential jurors, and Brosnahan may dismiss 10.

After the lawyers pick the panel, they must go through the selection process again--to seat six alternate jurors. Only then will the substance of the trial begin, with the lawyers’ opening statements.

At the current pace of jury selection, which has been far slower than expected, the opening statements are not likely to be delivered until well into next week or even the week after that.