Silberman Denies Intending to Commit Crime

Prominent San Diego businessman Richard T. Silberman, charged with laundering $300,000 that had been portrayed to him as Colombian drug profits, admitted Wednesday that he went through with the two deals at the heart of the case but said he never intended to commit a crime.

Testifying in his own defense, Silberman, who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., said he thought the first deal, a swap of $100,000 for stock in his gold mining company, was a legitimate business transaction.

Teary-eyed as he discussed the second deal, an exchange of $200,000 for U.S. Treasury bonds, Silberman said he was coerced into completing it by a government informer who threatened his family and left him “scared to death.”

Silberman said he never understood that the cash was purported drug money and maintained that he is innocent--despite testimony in the case by FBI agents that he confessed upon his arrest in April, 1989, in a San Diego hotel room.

Although Silberman occasionally fought back tears, he was more often composed and assertive while discussing his version of events. He said he “obviously made a mistake and did something stupid to get involved with this.”

But, later, during a savage cross-examination, Silberman was so subdued that U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving had to ask him to speak up. Federal prosecutors pointed out that Silberman had been aware of references to drugs and suggested that he had lied while doing the deals and was being untruthful--or his memory was fading--in court.

Silberman, 61, is standing trial on seven counts stemming from allegations that he laundered $300,000 that the undercover FBI agent--Peter Ahearn, who posed as Pete Carmassi, a front man for Colombian drug traffickers--characterized as narcotics profits.

If convicted, Silberman faces up to 75 years in prison.