Prison Plus Fine Sought for Silberman

Convicted financier Richard T. Silberman, facing a lengthy prison term after admitting his involvement in a scheme to launder alleged drug money, should also pay a $75,000 fine when he is sentenced Monday, federal prosecutors contend.

Silberman’s attorneys, in legal papers filed Friday, said the one-time governor’s aide is ruined financially and cannot afford a fine.

In the papers, which covered a wide range of subjects in an attempt to rebut federal investigators’ pre-sentence claims, defense attorneys provided new details about Silberman’s suicide attempt last February in Las Vegas.

After writing a farewell note to his wife, San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, Silberman drank heavily and took an overdose of pills that included tablets that had been prescribed for a family dog, defense lawyers said. He is no longer a suicide risk and will adapt well to prison, preferably a minimum-level security camp, they said.

Silberman, 61, pleaded guilty Aug. 24 to one felony count of conspiring to launder cash by violating federal currency laws. As part of a plea bargain struck with federal prosecutors, he agreed to drop an appeal of the sole count on which he was convicted June 28 after a two-month trial, a violation of the same technical currency laws.

Prosecutors, who were spared the burden of a second trial by the bargain and agreed to drop four other charges against Silberman, have agreed to recommend Monday to U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving that Silberman serve 41 to 51 months in prison--for both counts, to run concurrently.

However, in the documents filed Friday, prosecutors indicated that federal investigators have recommended to Irving that Silberman should spend significantly more time in prison--a sentence of up to 63 months.

Silberman, who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., was charged with directing a scheme to launder $300,000 in cash that an undercover FBI agent had portrayed as the proceeds of Colombian drug profits.

Four other men have been charged in the case, two of whom have pleaded guilty to a single felony count. Silberman’s plea bargain did not include the two others--including reputed mobster Chris Petti, 63, of San Diego--who are due to stand trial Oct. 3.

Silberman’s guilty plea set in motion the preparation by federal probation department investigators of a pre-sentence report, a recap of the case for Irving to consider in imposing a sentence.

Defense lawyer George C. Harris said in the defense papers that the plea bargain calls for a 41-to-51-month term.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Gorder said Silberman should pay a $75,000 fine--essentially the amount of money that recently obtained Swiss bank records indicated Silberman pocketed on the first of the two transactions in the case, a November, 1988, swap of $100,000 for stock in a financially ailing Silberman gold-mining subsidiary, Yuba American Gold.