Petti Sentenced to 30 Months for Role in Scheme : Crime: Silberman cohort had faced as much as 75 years in prison, but judge says longer term would be unfair.

Reputed mobster Chris Petti, who had faced as much as 75 years in prison, was sentenced Monday to 30 months for his role in a money-laundering scheme directed by San Diego financier Richard T. Silberman, blunting prosecutors’ plans to put Petti behind bars for good.

U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving also said that Petti, 63, of San Diego, would remain free on bail pending a certain appeal of his six felony convictions in the money-laundering scheme. The appeal process could take years.

Petti’s sentencing brought to a close a series of lengthy court cases that began in 1986 with thousands of wiretaps initially aimed at Petti--who is believed to be connected to organized crime in Chicago and Las Vegas--in a probe of mob interest in the Rincon Indian reservation.

The taps, however, led to Silberman--who once served as a top aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.--and to the money-laundering scheme. Prosecutors charged that Silberman, Petti and three others laundered $300,000 that an undercover FBI agent had portrayed as the profits of Colombian cocaine trafficking.

Ultimately, Silberman, Petti and three other men were convicted or pleaded guilty to felony charges in the scheme.

Irving said Monday that it would be unfair to send Petti--whom he had called a “pawn” in the money-laundering scheme--to prison for any longer than the 46 months given Silberman. In all, the judge ordered Petti to serve the 30-month term plus three years’ probation, and ordered him to pay a $6,000 fine.

Jubilant, Petti kissed family and friends as he left the courtroom. He declined comment.

Defense attorney Oscar Goodman was just as exuberant and not in the least bit reticent. “Thank God there’s a legitimate judge who tries to do the right thing in the face of an angry prosecutorial team and has the courage to see that even in the most difficult of circumstances the system does work,” he said.

Moments earlier, pleading with Irving for leniency, Goodman said that rigid federal guidelines under which Petti could have been assigned a much harsher sentence failed to take into account Petti’s minor role in the case.

“This is a human being,” Goodman said. “It’s hard to look at him as a human being when you’re talking 20 plus 3 plus 2 minus 3 minus 2, and the like,” he said, referring to the process of figuring a sentence. The guidelines use a point system--based mainly on the severity of the crime--to calculate the appropriate term.

Irving, who is resigning from the federal bench in two weeks because of frustration over the guidelines, was sympathetic.

The guidelines could have brought Petti a sentence nearly twice as long as the 46 months Silberman received, the judge said, even though one of the primary purposes behind the guidelines, which took effect three years ago, was to eliminate sentencing disparity.

“Common sense dictates” that Petti receive a sentence lighter than Silberman’s because Silberman was the “most culpable” man in the scheme, Irving said. “To do otherwise would be a gross miscarriage of justice,” he said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles F. Gorder, who had said the guidelines called for an 8- to 10-year term, declined to comment on the sentence. U.S. Atty. William Braniff said prosecutors were “disappointed we didn’t get more.”

Braniff said the government was also disappointed that Petti remains free. “It’s not unusual that some defendants in some cases are out on bail pending appeal,” Braniff said. “Often we’d like it otherwise, and in this case we asked that it be otherwise, but that’s part of the process.”

Braniff added, however, that because prosecutors had secured convictions or guilty pleas from Silberman, Petti and the three others indicted in April, 1989, that the case had to be seen as a success. “It’s an overall, very satisfactory resolution of the case,” he said.

Federal authorities stumbled onto Silberman after wiretapping Petti for months in the probe of mob interest in gaming operations at the Rincon reservation.

Most of the government’s evidence was collected through secret recordings, many gathered under a novel federal law--used for the first time--that allows agents to wiretap even public pay phones. Petti was the target of most of the taps.

Goodman said Monday that the so-called “roving taps,” which Irving said were legal in a ruling earlier this year, will be challenged on appeal. Without evidence gathered by the taps, there would be no case against Petti, Goodman said.

Just as the Rincon deal fell through in September, 1988, agents heard Silberman call Petti--whom he had met at a barbershop--and ask him if he knew anyone interested in laundering money, according to prosecutors.

That conversation evolved into two deals with undercover FBI Agent Peter J. Ahearn, who was posing as Pete Carmassi, a front man for Colombian drug lords, prosecutors said.

The first deal was a November, 1988, exchange of $100,000 for stock in a Silberman gold-mining subsidiary. The second was a February, 1989, exchange of $200,000 for U.S. Treasury bonds.

Petti introduced Silberman to Ahearn, according to Gorder. And, Gorder said, Silberman occasionally bragged during phone calls that Petti’s purported mob “muscle” was available.

Silberman was convicted June 28, after a two-month trial, of a technical currency violation. On Aug. 24, he pleaded guilty under a plea bargain to a second felony count, averting another trial.

Petti was convicted Oct. 23--after a trial before Irving alone, without a jury--of six felony counts, including the two money-laundering charges at the heart of the case.

He remains free on $250,000 bail.

The three other men have each pleaded guilty in the past few months to a sole felony count.