Silberman Allegedly Sought ‘Bigger Numbers’

Eager to prove he was reliable, Richard T. Silberman carried out a second deal to launder cash that he had been told came from Colombian drug lords just months after directing an initial laundering deal, according to tapes and testimony prosecutors presented Tuesday.

In dozens of secretly recorded tapes, Silberman, a prominent San Diego businessman, is heard proposing and directing the second deal. Federal prosecutors sought Tuesday to show that it involved a swap of $200,000, funds they contend an undercover FBI agent had portrayed as narcotics profits, for U.S. Treasury bonds.

Aiming for what one tape had him calling “bigger numbers,” Silberman stressed to undercover agent Peter Ahearn that he was ready for even more business.

“I’ve got something that no one will ever find out about,” Silberman said, a “mechanism” that was “so co-mingled” that “no one has ever written it up, written us up in the newspaper.”

Silberman, 61, who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., sat quietly Tuesday while the tapes rolled.

Silberman is standing trial on seven counts stemming from allegations that he laundered $300,000 characterized by Ahearn--who pretended to be Pete Carmassi, an agent of Colombian drug traffickers--as narcotics profits. Silberman was arrested in April, 1989, in a Mission Bay hotel room, purportedly while negotiating another deal.

If convicted, Silberman could receive 75 years in prison. His trial, in which testimony began last week, is expected to last six weeks before U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving.

In tapes played last week, prosecutors detailed the first deal, a swap in late 1988 of $100,000 for stock in a Silberman gold mining subsidiary. A few months later, according to tapes played Tuesday, Silberman proposed to Ahearn that he “move” $200,000 for U.S. Treasury bonds.

At a Feb. 7, 1989, meeting at a downtown San Diego coffee shop, Ahearn asked Silberman how he would explain that the “money came from a bunch of . . . Colombian cocaine drug lords.” According to a transcript of the tape prepared by prosecutors, Silberman’s reply was, “I don’t I don’t want to hear that.” Defense attorneys maintained Tuesday that the reply was, “I don’t I didn’t hear that.”

The money was exchanged on Feb. 22 and, a few days later, Ahearn received 40 bonds. However, according to the tapes and to Ahearn’s testimony Tuesday, the value of the bonds was thousands less, perhaps $50,000 less, than Ahearn had expected, even accounting for commissions taken along the way.

Prosecutors claim that Silberman decided to propose a third deal to Ahearn and planned to cut his own fees on the transaction to make up for the shortfall. They were negotiating in a Mission Bay hotel room on April 7, 1989, when Silberman was arrested, according to prosecutors.

Ahearn is expected to testify today about the details of the arrest.