SATICOY : Churches Turn Over Financial Records

Prosecutors on Friday were given the donation records of two Ventura County Catholic churches to determine whether they bolster the embezzlement case against a priest who was assigned to both parishes.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary C. Peace said the records will be examined to see if collection receipts dipped dramatically while Father David Dean Piroli was at Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy and St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley.

Piroli, 36, appeared in court Friday dressed in black and wearing his clerical collar. He is awaiting trial on two counts of grand theft, accused of embezzling $60,000 in collection money from the two parishes.

The charges stem from the discovery of a large amount of money in Piroli’s church-owned car and bedroom after a Hollywood drug arrest in May, 1992.

David P. Callahan, the churches’ attorney, said parish leaders did not object to a prosecution subpoena for donation records at Sacred Heart since 1984 and at St. Peter Claver since 1988.

However, church leaders are trying to block an attempt by Piroli’s attorney to examine all financial records for those two churches. Calling it “a matter of privacy and a matter of relevancy,” Callahan said the churches do not want to release the donations totals for individual parishioners, or a listing of church expenditures.

Piroli’s attorney, Richard J. Beada, said he believes the churches’ financial records are too sloppy to prove anything against Piroli. “They were kept by people who didn’t know what they were doing,” Beada said. “They had all this money, and they didn’t know how to keep records.”

Callahan did not defend the churches’ record-keeping systems.