Willie Brown Denies Charges by Financier : Documents: Richard T. Silberman offered FBI agents allegedly incriminating evidence about the Assembly Speaker. Court records say the businessman sought leniency in money-laundering case.

Richard T. Silberman, once the top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., sat face to face with FBI agents in a San Diego hotel room, his reputation and his freedom in jeopardy. Federal agents had detained him on suspicion of laundering money that an undercover agent had characterized as profits from an illegal narcotics deal.

Desperate to avoid prosecution, Silberman, a consummate negotiator, made an offer, according to court documents and trial testimony: In exchange for leniency, he would provide incriminating information about Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, the San Francisco Democrat considered the state’s second most powerful politician after the governor. Silberman told the agents that Brown’s law firm had connections to businesses with a stake in legislation under the powerful lawmaker’s control, and he offered to expose the ties.

Apparently, the FBI turned down Silberman’s proposal. They arrested the San Diego businessman and prosecutors put him on trial. Last month, he was convicted on a federal currency charge and is in jail in San Diego awaiting sentencing to federal prison.

Silberman’s allegations about Brown and others, made more than a year ago, were revealed in court documents filed in May by Silberman’s lawyers. Their publication Friday has rankled the Assembly leader, who long has complained that the police and the FBI are out to get him.

Brown, in an interview with The Times, emphatically denied Silberman’s accusations, which he said were “totally and completely unsupported.”

“It’s an irresponsible allegation made by a sick man who’s been convicted,” Brown said.

Notes of the meeting between Silberman and FBI Agent Charles Walker indicate that Silberman described Chula Vista City Councilman David Malcolm as Brown’s “bagman” and said Brown’s San Francisco law office had a connection to legislation involving the state unitary tax law and the proposed merger of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Part of the notes read:

“7/83--Jap. meeting re unitary tax”

“25K ‘legal fee’--millions in savings”

After leaving Brown’s staff, Silberman lobbied the Legislature on behalf of Japanese business interests seeking to overhaul the state’s unitary tax law, which involves the way the state assesses multinational corporations that do business in California.

In 1986, the Legislature revised the system in a way that lightened the California tax burden on foreign corporations.

Silberman, as a top Democratic Party figure and a lobbyist, would have been well positioned to broker or observe a deal between the Speaker and the Japanese businesses. But Brown emphatically denied any wrongdoing.

“I’d really like to have him (Silberman) go through my client list and tell me which one of those non-Japanese were involved in the unitary matter,” Brown said. “I represent developers and movie stars and record executives and that’s it.”

Brown also said his law firm has never been connected to Southern California Edison. And he said he had “no idea” why Silberman would describe Malcolm as his “bagman”--a term used in political circles to describe a person who acts as an intermediary for illicit payments from special interests to elected officials.

Brown twice has appointed Malcolm to the state Coastal Commission, but he said he first did so at the recommendation of local officials and members of the Legislature. He said the two are not close and noted that Malcolm, a Republican, raises campaign contributions for GOP politicians.

“I wish I could get him to raise money for me,” Brown said. He said Malcolm has had no connection to his law firm and has never recommended clients to him.

Despite his denials, Brown said he could understand why Silberman, seeking to escape prosecution, would try to shift the attention to someone else.

“I practiced law for a long time, and every time I’ve represented anybody who’s gotten nailed, the first thing they start asking me about is, is there some way we can give them (the police) somebody,” Brown said. “They say we’ll give them somebody who can’t get back at us, and we’ll give them somebody they might believe.

“Why Willie Brown? I have no idea. I have no connection at all.”

Weintraub reported from Sacramento and Abrahamson from San Diego.