Jury Selection Begins in Priest’s Theft Trial : Courts: Defense attorney for David Dean Piroli says another clergyman at the Simi Valley church embezzled the money.

As jury selection Tuesday opened the trial of a Simi Valley priest accused of embezzling $60,000 in collection money from two Ventura County churches, his attorney won permission to fight the already sensational charges with a new allegation: Another priest did it.

The attorney for Father David Dean Piroli told Superior Court Judge Allan Steele that the money was actually embezzled from St. Peter Claver Church by its head pastor at the time.

Defense attorney Richard Beada said he has evidence that Father James McKeon took cash and checks from parishioners’ donations, then planted the money in Piroli’s car and bedroom because the younger priest threatened to blow the whistle on him.

“The people’s theory in this case is that Father Piroli was stealing cash that came into the church coffers by way of collection money,” Beada said. “I have evidence, direct evidence, that Father McKeon was taking money from the same source . . . and that he had access to Father Piroli’s residence and Father Piroli’s car.”

Judge Steele agreed to let Piroli use this defense.

But the judge refused to admit evidence that would have stacked lurid new allegations onto the case--a prosecution assertion that Piroli kept company with and spent money on a male prostitute and a defense contention that McKeon frequented a gay bathhouse in Los Angeles.

Neither of these issues have direct bearing on whether Piroli took church funds, Steele ruled.

McKeon, who was Piroli’s supervisor and has since moved on to become a pastor at another parish in Westlake Village, declined through a church employee to comment on Beada’s statements.

Father Gregory Coiro, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which oversees the priests, said of the allegations, “I can’t comment on any of them because I have so little knowledge.”

The statements in open court added a seamy new layer to a case that has already shaken two tightly-knit church communities that Piroli once served--St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley and Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy.

The case came to light May 27, 1992.

Hollywood police who were called to roust loiterers outside a Sears store found Piroli sitting in his church car with a young man, a small amount of cocaine and $10,000 cash in small bills.

Church employees found $50,000 more in Piroli’s rooms at the rectory, along with parishioners’ donation checks and St. Peter Claver collection envelopes, some of them torn open, prosecutors said. Donations were ordinarily taken to a safe place in the church offices before being deposited in a bank.

On June 3, as prosecutors and church officials pondered possible criminal charges against him, Piroli disappeared.

He resurfaced July 30, 1992, at the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to re-enter California with two undocumented immigrants in his trunk. One of the immigrants, Israel Palacios, was the same young man who was with Piroli in Hollywood when he was initially arrested, prosecutors said.

On Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Peace sought permission to have a Hollywood police officer testify about the cocaine and to identify Palacios as a prostitute.

Peace argued that such evidence would back her theory that Piroli was embezzling church funds to support a cocaine habit and a boyfriend. She also sought permission to show jurors gay pornographic pictures found in Piroli’s rooms.

Steele said he would allow jurors to hear evidence about the drugs and see a photograph of Palacios in swimming trunks that was found in Piroli’s possession--to support Peace’s contention that Piroli was spending money on the man and had a close relationship with him.

But the judge said that unless Peace produces court documents showing Palacios had been convicted of prostitution, he would not let jurors hear about it. Without such proof, the judge also refused to allow the prosecution to inform the jury about Palacios’ presence in the car trunk at the border or see the pornography.

Defense attorney Beada said he had witnesses ready to testify that Father James McKeon was seen at gay bathhouses in West Hollywood.

But Steele refused to let Beada present any such evidence, ruling that the discussion of homosexuality was “gratuitous.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Steele excused several potential jurors for hardships, and because some said they had already developed opinions on Piroli’s case after reading newspaper articles about his arrest and arraignment.

Jury selection is scheduled to continue this morning, and opening arguments and testimony are expected to begin next week, attorneys said.