Opening Statements Due as Judge Rejects Bid to Move Silberman Trial

A federal judge Tuesday denied a renewed request to move Richard T. Silberman’s money-laundering case out of San Diego, setting the stage for the delivery today of opening statements at the trial of the prominent San Diego financier.

As he did last month, U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving again rejected a bid by Silberman’s attorneys to move the case out of town, saying Silberman could get a fair trial despite the intense publicity the case has generated.

Wrapping up a series of last-minute defense challenges, Irving also said there was no merit to an unusual claim that the makeup of the jury, chosen last week, was racially flawed because prosecutors discharged two black jurors from the panel. Silberman, who is white, had no legal basis to challenge the exclusion of black jurors, Irving said.

Silberman, 61, who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., is charged with laundering $300,000 that an undercover FBI agent purportedly characterized as the proceeds of Colombian drug dealing.

If convicted, Silberman, who is married to San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, faces up to 75 years in prison. His trial is expected to last six weeks.

Last month, Irving had said he would not even think about transferring the trial before he and the lawyers in the case had a chance to question individual jurors to gauge the effect of publicity.

It turned out, defense lawyer George Harris said, that eight of the 12 jurors who were chosen knew not only that Silberman faced criminal charges but that he had tried to kill himself last February in a Las Vegas hotel room.

That meant that it was impossible for Silberman to receive a fair trial, Harris said, because no matter what went on in the courtroom, some jurors were apt to ignore the evidence and decide that Silberman must have been guilty if he tried to commit suicide.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Carol C. Lam replied that jurors swore that they not only could--but would--be fair. Irving said he agreed with that view.

Another of Silberman’s defense lawyers, Diane Amann, raised the unusual challenge to the composition of the jury. Silberman, who is white, thought it was unfair for prosecutors to strike two black jurors from the panel without cause because that suggested a systematic exclusion of blacks and meant the panel would not fairly depict San Diego’s racial makeup, Amann said.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles F. Gorder Jr., reminded Irving that a black woman actually made it onto the panel.