Church Maid Testifies in Priest’s Embezzlement Trial : Courts: Dorothy Meyer says she helped empty Father David Dean Piroli’s rectory rooms of tens of thousands of dollars.

An elderly parish maid fell ill under cross-examination Wednesday as she testified against a Simi Valley priest accused of embezzling $60,000 from two Ventura County churches.

Dorothy Meyer stepped down from the stand three times Wednesday morning because she felt chest pains testifying in the trial of Father David Dean Piroli.

Just after 10:30 a.m., Judge Allan L. Steele finally halted Meyer’s testimony for nearly three hours, telling jurors that she suffered from angina and had already taken her maximum dosage of nitroglycerin pills.

At 1:30, Meyer returned to the stand for another three hours of detailed cross-examination by defense attorney Richard Beada, but she did not complain of any more pains.

Under oath, Meyer expressed her distaste Wednesday for the priest by refusing to call him anything but “Piroli.”

Dorothy Meyer testified that she stopped calling him “Father” after she helped empty his rectory rooms of tens of thousands of dollars in parishioners’ donations she found there. Piroli, 37, faces two counts of grand theft.

At times, Beada’s questioning of Meyer brought out apparent discrepancies in testimony given by other witnesses.

A church official had testified Tuesday that money counters were ordered every week to put $125 to $150 of collection money into the desk of head pastor, Father James McKeon. The money was to be used for housekeeping expenses, Richard Barrett had testified.

But on Wednesday, Meyer told jurors that church checks were used to pay for cooking and cleaning for the two priests.

Beada has alleged in court that McKeon actually took the money and planted it on Piroli, fearing his own theft would be exposed by his associate pastor. McKeon has repeatedly declined to comment on the claim, and the archdiocese condemned it in a strongly worded statement two weeks ago.

Meyer testified that a photograph taken by church employees searching Piroli’s rooms showed church collection envelopes in a drawer that held only underwear the first time she looked inside.

Meyer also testified that church secretary Eileen Slavin’s notes falsely recorded how the cache of stolen money was discovered in Piroli’s rooms June 2, 1992.

Meyer said she found money in Piroli’s desk drawer after Slavin told her to look there. But Slavin gave a different account on an audiotape she made of her memories of the case, Meyer said.

“Eileen had put on the tape that I was putting clothes in Piroli’s drawer, and I found the money,” Meyer testified. “I asked her to take that off (the tape) because that’s not what happened.”

After searching Piroli’s rooms, Slavin and other church employees said they wanted her to help hide the fact that they had looked through his belongings, Meyer said.