Reporter’s Visit to Silberman Juror’s Home Is Questioned

A San Diego Tribune reporter visited the home of a juror in the Richard T. Silberman money-laundering trial Wednesday, prompting the judge presiding over the case to call a hearing today to learn whether anything improper occurred.

At a hastily called hearing late Wednesday, a lawyer for the newspaper, Edward J. McIntyre, said its editors were “one, embarrassed and, two, livid” about the incident. Communication with jurors about a case they are considering is forbidden by the court.

The paper’s deputy editor said its management is “sorry” about the visit but insisted that no harm was done because the reporter, Susan Shroder, did not speak with juror Sandra Costa, but with Costa’s son, deputy editor Robert Witty said.

The visit occurred as the jury was completing its second day of deliberations. In four notes to U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving, the panel asked to listen to several secretly recorded tapes in the case and indicated it was prepared to continue discussing the case into next week.

Silberman, 61, a San Diego financier and one-time aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., is accused of laundering $300,000 that an undercover FBI agent allegedly told Silberman was the proceeds of Colombian cocaine trafficking.

If convicted, he faces up to 75 years in prison. His trial ran for six weeks.

Irving has not released information--including addresses and phone numbers--about any of the jurors. At a hearing on that matter Wednesday morning, he agreed with McIntyre, the Tribune attorney, that he was obligated to release that sort of data but did not provide it immediately to give Silberman’s defense attorneys time to appeal.

Shroder visited Costa’s home in Lake Morena Village, near Campo, Wednesday afternoon to confirm Costa’s phone number, which the paper intended to use to speak with Costa after the jury returns its verdict, deputy editor Witty said. She confirmed the number, obtained through other sources, with a man who identified himself as Costa’s son and then left, he said.

The name of the son was not immediately available. At the time, juror Costa was at the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego.

Shroder, 36, who has been with the Tribune for more than two years, has not covered the Silberman trial regularly but is one of several writers the paper has ready to help cover the case once the jury verdict is returned. She referred calls Wednesday to Tribune attorneys.

“I don’t think anybody sent her,” deputy editor Witty said, adding that ‘they did not ask her to knock on the door. She was not instructed to talk to anybody at the house, and we’re sorry she did.” But he added that, since Shroder made no attempt to talk to juror Costa, “I don’t think any great harm was done.”

Jury tampering is a criminal offense.

Irving said late Wednesday that he wants Shroder to appear today in court to explain what happened. She is expected to appear.

In its notes, the jury told Irving on Wednesday that it wanted to listen to three tapes, including one between Silberman and the undercover FBI agent, Peter Ahearn, in which Ahearn tells Silberman that his cash comes from “a bunch of . . . Colombian drug lords.”

The key issue in the case is whether Silberman believed the cash was drug money. Much of the evidence in the case comes from recordings gathered through wiretaps and hidden body recorders.

The jury also wondered whether members could leave an hour early today, a request that Irving granted.