Trial Begins for Simi Priest Charged With Embezzlement : Crime: Police testify about arresting Father David Piroli 20 months ago. They found cash, cocaine and collection envelopes in his church car.

A Simi Valley priest accused of embezzling $60,000 from two Ventura County churches went on trial Monday, nearly 20 months after police found him in his church car surrounded by cash, collection envelopes and cocaine.

His clerical collar straight and gaze steady, Father David Dean Piroli listened attentively as Hollywood patrol officers described the arrest to a jury of 10 men and two women.

On May 29, 1992, Los Angeles Police Department officers found Piroli as he drove a man named Israel Palacios across the parking lot of the Sears store on Santa Monica Boulevard, testified Officer Ignacio Verduzco of the Hollywood Division.

A large amount of money was sticking out from beneath the driver’s side floor mat, and Verduzco lifted it and found more, he testified.

“I questioned the defendant about the currency under the floor mat, and he replied that it was his--that he had just withdrawn $500 from the bank, and $100 of that was in $1 bills,” Verduzco testified.

“He used it to buy airline tickets and travelers’ checks for Israel Palacios, who was going on emergency leave to visit his family in Mexico,” Verduzco testified. Piroli said he hid the money because of the high crime rate in Hollywood, the officer said.

Police also found more than $1,000 in a cardboard box under the driver’s seat, including some in an envelope marked with the name of Sacred Heart Church, he testified.

The priest explained that the money was saved up from years of fees parishioners paid him to say special Masses, Verduzco told jurors.

Piroli had served as assistant pastor at Sacred Heart in Saticoy for four years before moving in 1990 to St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley--his assignment until church officials suspended him following his arrest.

Police found two matchboxes containing rock cocaine in the console between the seats, along with an airline ticket, travelers’ checks and a brown paper bag filled with more cash, Verduzco testified.

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Verduzco said Piroli denied owning or using the cocaine.

The priest explained, “ ‘It’s not mine. The cocaine which was packaged in the matchbox, I confiscated from an individual last Thursday. The other, I have no idea where it came from,’ ” Verduzco testified.

Officer Chantelle Koch testified that she searched the back seat of the Chevrolet Lumina, owned by St. Peter Claver Church, and found $2,046 in yet another paper bag.

In the trunk, she found a paper bag containing boxes that held still more cash, Koch testified.

Koch said she also found four folded $1 bills containing traces of cocaine.

But under cross-examination by defense attorney Richard Beada, Koch testified that the cocaine was found on the passenger’s side of the car and Piroli was in the driver’s seat when police stopped him.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Peace opened the trial by telling jurors that she would prove Piroli skimmed thousands of dollars from the two churches and spent some of it on cocaine and on his friend Palacios, upon whom he lavished the plane ticket and travelers’ checks.

After police tallied $10,640 found in the church car and parishioners bailed Piroli out, church officials searched his room and found $47,666 in small bills, plus parishioners’ checks worth $3,000, Peace told jurors.

Peace said a forensic accountant will testify that when Piroli was at Sacred Heart in 1986, he kept about $12,000 in three bank accounts--an amount that swelled by the time of his arrest to $54,000 in nine separate accounts.

The churches’ records also will show that collections from parishioners dropped noticeably when Piroli was at Sacred Heart, and even more when he was at St. Peter Claver, she said.

“This is basically what the people’s evidence will show,” Peace said. “That the defendant stole smaller amounts at Sacred Heart, that he went to St. Peter Claver where the pastor was not as financially astute and that he stole $50,000 of the money there and he spent some of the money on cocaine and on Israel Palacios.”

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Piroli fled after his arrest, but was rearrested more than a month later at the Mexican border in Calexico and brought to Ventura County for trial, Peace said.

Beada waived his right to make an opening statement to jurors until later in the trial.

But after the jury left for the day, Beada laid out a theory he hoped would explain Piroli’s swift departure from Simi Valley on June 2 or 3, a few days after his arrest.

Piroli feared for his safety after hearing of bad experiences suffered by a series of assistant pastors before him, Beada told Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele.

One unnamed priest died in a car wreck while another, Father Steve Vecsey, was assaulted 10 years ago by the husband of Eileen Slavin, the church secretary, Beada said.

Furthermore, Beada said, Slavin is expected to testify that she let the air out of Piroli’s tires after finding the cash in his room--a statement with which prosecutor Peace agreed.

Beada also alleged that Slavin had had an affair with head pastor Father McKeon, which led to Vecsey’s beating.

Reached for comment Monday, McKeon denied the latest defense allegation, calling it “a big joke.” He said the allegation of his purported affair with the church secretary “has been going on for years. It first started in the 1970s, then it died down, then it came up again.”

Several weeks ago, Beada alleged in court that McKeon was actually stealing the church’s money to spend on a gay lifestyle and planted it on Piroli because he feared the younger priest would expose him.

McKeon said of these allegations, “I have no comment.”

Neither Slavin nor her husband, whose name was not mentioned, could be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Peace protested Beada’s remarks, telling the judge: “He’s just trying to dirty people up and confuse the jury.”

Steele said he will let Piroli testify that he was frightened because his tires were deflated, but he will not let jurors hear evidence about Piroli’s predecessors.

Testimony is to continue today at 10 a.m.