Silberman Jury Begins Its Deliberations
The jury in Richard T. Silberman’s money-laundering trial began deliberations Tuesday, charged with deciding whether the San Diego businessman directed a scheme to launder $300,000 in purported drug money.
The panel sent two notes Tuesday afternoon to U. S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving, one asking for additional sets of jury instructions and another asking for copies of the indictment against Silberman.
Silberman, 61, is charged with seven felony counts.
He is accused of laundering $300,000 that an undercover FBI agent allegedly told Silberman was the proceeds of Colombian drug trafficking.
If convicted, he faces up to 75 years in prison. His trial lasted six weeks.
Silberman, a former top aide to Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., is married to San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding.
The case involves two transactions.
The first is a November, 1988, swap of $100,000 for stock in a Silberman gold-mininig subsidiary.
The second is a February, 1989, exchange of $200,000 for U. S. Treasury bonds.
Silberman maintains that the first deal was a legitimate business transaction.
He contends he was coerced into the second by threats aimed at his family by a government informer.
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