Silberman Case Figure Pleads Guilty : Plea bargain: Deal paves way for banker to testify in money-laundering trial of San Diego businessman.

Jack Norman Myers, a Malibu investment banker accused of being a courier in a money-laundering scheme that prosecutors claim was directed by San Diego businessman Richard T. Silberman, pleaded guilty Monday to one criminal count in the complex case.

Under a plea bargain struck as jury selection in Silberman’s trial neared completion, Myers agreed to testify against Silberman, who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., and to back up his testimony with corroborating documents.

In return, prosecutors agreed to dismiss five related charges and to recommend that Myers, who has been associated with Silberman since both were active political fund-raisers for Brown, receive a maximum sentence of six months at a minimum-security federal prison.

Myers, 44, who was once married to Los Angeles socialite Lynn Wasserman, the daughter of MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman, declined to comment on the deal as he walked away--with FBI agents--from a brief hearing in San Diego federal court. One of Silberman’s defense attorneys, George Harris, said Monday that he had no comment on the deal.

Opening statements in Silberman’s trial are scheduled Wednesday. Though Silberman was charged with Myers and three other men, he is standing trial alone on allegations that he laundered $300,000 in cash that an undercover FBI agent portrayed as the proceeds of Colombian drug trafficking.

One of the three, Terry Ziegler, 45, a Los Angeles investment broker, also agreed to a deal last month, pleading guilty to one criminal count of violating federal currency laws. It is not known whether Ziegler will testify at Silberman’s trial.

The two others, reputed mobster Chris Petti, 63, of San Diego and Darryl Nakatsuka, 43, of Los Angeles are scheduled to stand trial beginning July 17.

In a written plea agreement filed late Monday with the San Diego court, Ziegler said Silberman asked him sometime before November, 1988, for help moving “some cash to a foreign bank account” without producing any transaction records.

On Nov. 30, 1988, at Silberman’s direction, Myers and Nakatsuka went to the Los Angeles Airport Hilton, where Nakatsuka picked up $100,000 from an undercover FBI agent, according to the document.

Myers and Nakatsuka took the cash to Ziegler, who admitted in April that he broke the money into smaller sums and eventually wired $45,000 of it to a Hong Kong bank account that prosecutors contend was controlled by Silberman.

Some of the paper work that federal law requires for any transaction over $10,000 was not filed for the $45,000, and Myers pleaded guilty Monday to failing to file those papers.

Myers also said in the written agreement that he kept $4,000 of the $100,000 as compensation for the deal--$2,000 for himself and $2,000 for Silberman.

Myers had faced a maximum prison term of 75 years. Though prosecutors recommended the six-month term, U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving reminded Myers Monday that the law permits him to impose a sentence of up to five years--followed by two or three years probation--and a $250,000 fine.

Myers, who remains free on bail, also agreed to forfeit his share of the cash, stocks and bonds that prosecutors contend were central to the scheme. Irving set sentencing for Sept. 24.