Silberman Discovered Unconscious in Hotel : Disappearance: S.D. financier’s trail leads to Las Vegas, where he is now hospitalized.

Two days after he disappeared, San Diego financier Richard T. Silberman was located by police late Saturday afternoon in a Las Vegas hotel room, where he was found unconscious and lying fully clothed on the bed.

Lt. Randy Oaks, a Las Vegas police spokesman, said that one of his detectives used a passkey to enter the fifth-floor room at the posh Las Vegas Hilton about 5:15 p.m., after Silberman, a former state Democratic Party official under indictment on federal money-laundering charges, failed to come to the door.

“The detective found Mr. Silberman lying in an unconscious state on the bed and brought him to a conscious state,” Oaks said. “Then he summoned medical attention.”

Although San Diego police said Silberman was apparently under the influence of “some kind of substance,” it was was unclear late Saturday what drugs or alcohol, if any, Silberman may have ingested.

Officials at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, where Silberman was rushed and later listed in serious but stable condition, were still performing toxicology tests Saturday night. He was expected to remain in the medical center overnight.

However, Oaks did say:

“Our detective found nothing in the way of leftover residue, pills, or anything of that nature. It appeared to him that Mr. Silberman entered that room with nothing more than the clothes on his back.”

Oaks added that the detective did find a note that Silberman had written in the room, which the lieutenant would only describe as “a writing of some kind.”

Police said Silberman was alone when he checked into the room Thursday night, using his own name. The room did not appear to be dishevelled, Oaks said, and no personal belongings were found inside.

Silberman, 60, a former official in the Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. administration in the last 1970s, is scheduled to stand trial in April on federal money-laundering charges. He has experienced several financial difficulties since his arrest 10 months ago, and he could face up to 75 years in prison and a $2.75 million fine, if convicted on the charges.

Las Vegas police said that Silberman’s wife, Susan Golding, a son and a daughter-in-law, joined him at the hospital Saturday night, along with his personal physician and criminal defense attorney.

They could not be reached for comment Saturday.

However, sources close to the investigation said that Golding told San Diego police Saturday morning that she found several notes from her husband in their La Jolla home, messages that led her to believe he was thinking of killing himself.

In addition, the sources said that Silberman in recent days had transferred a good deal of money from his bank accounts to his wife’s, even “maybe up to a $1 million.”

San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen said he spoke on Friday and Saturday with Golding, a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

“She’s very distraught,” he said. “I think she is just concerned for his welfare . . . she’s a concerned wife.”

Silberman vanished Thursday after he told his family that he was going to Orange County to have dinner and meet with an attorney. But he never made that meeting, and a missing person’s report was filed.

He was last seen Thursday evening at Lindbergh Field, where he purchased a ticket for a 6 p.m. flight to Los Angeles International Airport. His 1975 light-blue Mercedes Benz 250 SL was parked at the airport terminal.

V. Wayne Kennedy, a UC San Diego administration official, said Saturday that he saw Silberman at the airport Thursday evening “around 6 p.m. or a little before,” but did not get the chance to speak to him.

“He was walking in the airport, and I was walking out,” Kennedy said. He added that Silberman was alone, and did not appear to be preoccupied or distraught.

Gore said police could not determine Friday whether Silberman actually boarded the plane to Los Angeles. But on Saturday, he said, police interviewed a witness they declined to identify who saw Silberman at the Los Angeles airport.

By checking flight records, police learned that Silberman was traveling alone, under his own name. Detectives then traced him to Las Vegas. From there, San Diego and Las Vegas officers began checking hotel guest registers in the Nevada resort, police said.

At 5:15 p.m. Saturday, they knocked on his door at the Hilton, where he had also registered under his own name.

“His condition is such that he was in need of medical attention,” Gore said. “How long prior to that he ingested something, I can’t tell you. But I understand his condition is not life-threatening.”

Because Silberman is free on $500,000 bond pending his trial in federal court, it was unclear Saturday night what effect his disappearance and medical condition will have on the court case.

“As far as the San Diego Police Department was concerned, he was reported as a missing person and we followed up on that,” Gore said. “The issue of bail and bond and so forth is a condition that the court imposes to ensure attendance at scheduled court appearannces. Any more detail on that will have to come from federal authorities.”

FBI officials declined to comment Saturday night. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 19.

James Brosnahan, Silberman’s defense attorney, met with Golding Friday, but he declined to comment on the disappearance.

Oscar Goodman, a Las Vegas attorney who is representing reputed mobster Chris Petti, a co-defendant in the money-laundering case, said Saturday that he does not believe Silberman intended to evade justice.

“He’s not the sort of fellow who would run,” Goodman said. “I don’t see that in a million years.

“But you know, he’s been under an extreme amount of pressure lately, and everybody reacts differently in difficult situations. He may have just felt he had to get away for awhile.”

Goodman added that he plans to call Silberman as a witness on behalf of Petti, particularly in regard to his taped statement to the FBI after his April 7 arrest. An FBI report of that statement was made public for the first time Friday.

“He said to the FBI agents that Petti didn’t know anything about what was happening,” Goodman said. “That’s what I see and hear on the videotape. And that’s absolutely important for us.”

Silberman, Petti and three other men are charged in U.S. District Court with seven felony counts of laundering $300,000 that they believed was Colombian drug profits. The operation actually was an elaborate undercover FBI sting involving a mobster-turned-government informant and numerous wiretaps and police surveillance.