FBI Agent Testifies in Silberman Trial

The key undercover FBI agent in Richard T. Silberman’s money-laundering trial testified Thursday that he never encouraged or authorized an informer in the case to make death threats against the prominent financier’s family.

Although defense attorneys contend that informer Robert Benjamin pressured Silberman into completing one of the two deals at the heart of the case by threatening the businessman’s family, FBI Agent Peter Ahearn said Thursday that he knew nothing about any threats.

“I didn’t authorize Mr. Benjamin to threaten anybody,” Ahearn said.

Silberman, 61, is standing trial on seven counts stemming from allegations that he laundered $300,000 characterized by Ahearn--who posed as Pete Carmassi, an agent of Colombian drug lords--as narcotics profits.

Silberman, who is married to San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, was arrested in April, 1989, purportedly while negotiating a third deal to launder cash.

Silberman, a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., faces up to 75 years in prison if he is convicted on all counts. His trial, in which testimony began last week, is expected to last six weeks before U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving.

In testimony that began last week, Ahearn spent three days explaining, with the help of secretly recorded tapes, the two deals prosecutors contend form the basis of the case. The first was a late 1988 swap of $100,000 for stock in a Silberman gold-mining firm. The second was a February, 1989, exchange of $200,000 for U.S. Treasury bonds.

But, under cross-examination Thursday by lead defense lawyer James J. Brosnahan, Ahearn spent most of his time answering questions about Benjamin, a convicted felon. Repeatedly, Ahearn denied any knowledge of threats aimed by Benjamin at Silberman’s family.

Ahearn did say that, on Jan. 6, 1989, he told Silberman not to be seen with Benjamin any more. But the agent said that recommendation was designed solely to protect his cover story.

“It was called cutting out the informant, and it was done deliberately,” Ahearn said.

Brosnahan tried several times to ask Ahearn questions about Benjamin’s past, which the defense team alleges is violent, and about how much money Benjamin made by taking part in the Silberman case, but Irving refused to let those questions be answered.

Although Ahearn knew some details--for instance, he said Benjamin supports himself in part by selling aluminum siding--the judge ruled that Ahearn simply did not know enough about Benjamin to answer the questions effectively. Defense lawyers will be free to explore Benjamin’s role by questioning other witnesses, Irving said.

Ahearn’s testimony ended Thursday with Brosnahan repeating an allegation that Ahearn threatened a witness in June, 1983.