Priest Accused of Stealing Saint’s Letters : Crime: The Simi Valley clergyman faces new charges after missives stolen from a seminary are found in his safe.

A Simi Valley priest accused of embezzling more than $43,000 of his parishioners’ donations also kept stolen letters written by America’s first saint locked in a safe in his room, prosecutors charged Thursday.

Father David Piroli, 36, pleaded not guilty in Ventura County Superior Court to one charge each of grand theft by embezzlement and receiving stolen property.

If convicted of both felonies, the priest faces up to three years and eight months in prison in a case that has spanned international borders and stunned members of the close-knit St. Peter Claver Church where he served two years as assistant pastor.

The charge that Piroli possessed the stolen letters of a saint was the latest twist in a dizzying trip through the legal system that began in May when the priest was arrested in Hollywood on a drug charge.

The bound volume of letters by Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, better known as Mother Cabrini, was found in Piroli’s personal safe during a search conducted after he fled Ventura County in early June.

The letters had been stolen from a locked, non-circulating library at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, from which Piroli graduated in 1986, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Peace.

Piroli’s former students and parishioners packed the courtroom Thursday, some curious about the charges against him, others anxious to show support.

“When he talked to us, it never appeared he could do something like that,” said Betsy Sassen, 16, a former religion student of Piroli. “But I don’t know all the facts.”

Piroli’s initial arrest came May 27, when LAPD officers in Hollywood arrested him in a church-owned car with a small amount of cocaine and $10,000 in small bills, plus church collection envelopes.

Another $50,000 in cash was found in a search of Piroli’s room at the church rectory, along with more collection envelopes and parishioners’ donation checks.

Shortly before the Los Angeles district attorney dropped charges of drug possession and embezzlement in June due to lack of evidence and lack of jurisdiction, respectively, Piroli disappeared.

He resurfaced July 30 at the Mexican border, driving into California with two allegedly illegal immigrants in the trunk of his newly purchased car.

Authorities arrested Piroli that night on federal charges of alien-smuggling and returned him to Ventura County on an arrest warrant for suspicion of embezzlement.

The stolen property charge over Mother Cabrini’s letters was added Thursday, much to the shock of officials at St. John’s Seminary, who first learned that the book was missing when investigators questioned them last week.

“It was a surprise to us,” said Father Gabino Zavala, president of the seminary’s graduate school. “I’m not sure it was going to get a lot of money in the open market, but because of the historical nature, it has some value to us.”

Mother Cabrini came to America from Italy in 1889 at the urging of Pope Leo XIII to minister to Italian immigrants. She founded orphanages, convents, nurseries, hospitals and schools throughout the United States, settling at one point in Burbank.

She was canonized in 1946, 29 years after her death.

Mother Cabrini corresponded with a bishop named Thomas Conaty in a series of letters that were bound and eventually made part of the library at St. John’s Seminary, Peace said. Conaty, an Irish educator, served as the sixth bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles from 1903 to his death in 1915.

Prosecutors are still investigating the possibility that Piroli took money from Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy, where he served for four years before his appointment to St. Peter Claver in 1990, Peace said.

They have obtained a search warrant for records of Piroli’s accounts at six banks in Ventura and Los Angeles counties: Home Federal Bank in Camarillo, California Federal Bank branches in Canoga Park, Woodland Hills and Ventura, and Wells Fargo Bank branches in North Hollywood and Woodland Hills.

Court records show that while he was earning only $400 a month as assistant pastor at both churches, Piroli made deposits of more than $40,000 into 14 bank accounts.

An audit by the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles found that donations to St. Peter Claver fell by 17.9% in 1991 and 42.7% in 1992, according to an affidavit filed by investigator Kim Stewart of the district attorney’s office.

As soon as Piroli disappeared on June 3, however, donations increased by about $1,000 a week, the affidavit said.

“The records I have already located and reviewed lead me to believe that Piroli’s income took a significant upturn upon his arrival at Sacred Heart Church,” Stewart wrote in the affidavit. “I have not located any information or evidence to date that suggests Piroli had any other source of funds other than a salary and stipends from parishioners.”

From June, 1977, to November, 1985, Piroli maintained an average balance of less than $2,500 in a Wells Fargo account, Stewart wrote in her affidavit.

By July 13, 1988, that had risen to $5,764 and by May, 1992, it had swelled to $19,446.56--an average monthly deposit of $733, the affidavit said.

Piroli is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail in the Ventura County Jail, awaiting a preliminary hearing scheduled for Sept. 10.

“He’s OK; he’s getting along,” said defense attorney Richard Beada of Santa Monica. “He receives letters in jail, he receives visitors. He knows he has very strong community support.”