Secretary Sabotaged Accused Priest’s Car to Prevent Escape : Trial: Church aide testifies that she and maid found large sums hidden in Father David Piroli’s quarters. Piroli is charged with grand theft.

A Simi Valley church secretary testified Monday that after finding bundles of cash in Father David Dean Piroli’s rooms, she let the air out of his car tire for fear that he would flee with parishioners’ collection money.

“I thought he’d be getting away with the money, and there went our proof, and there went all our parishioners’ cash,” Eileen Slavin testified at Piroli’s embezzlement trial in Ventura County Superior Court. Piroli, 37, faces two counts of grand theft.

Slavin testified that her sabotage of Piroli’s church car on June 3, 1992, occurred the day after she and church maid Dorothy Meyer searched his rooms at the St. Peter Claver Church residence. The search was initiated a few days after Piroli was arrested in a church car in Hollywood, surrounded by $10,000 in cash, collection envelopes and traces of cocaine.

The church’s pastor, Father James McKeon, had suggested that the search begin in Piroli’s dresser drawer because McKeon had once noticed cash there, Slavin testified. After she told Meyer to start there, the tearful maid summoned her to Piroli’s bedroom and pointed to the priest’s dresser drawer, Slavin testified.

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There, Slavin testified, “I saw the money spread across the drawer underneath underwear and socks. . . . I felt it was about three inches deep.”

The women and other church employees poked through filing cabinets in Piroli’s bedroom and office, finding cash stuffed into boxes, bags, drawers and closet shelves, she testified.

There were messy piles of money in a cardboard box, neatly sorted stacks of cash arrayed in drawers, and folded wads of $50 and $100 bills stuffed into a coffee can in a red filing cabinet by Piroli’s bed, Slavin testified.

They did not disturb the cash, fearing Piroli might discover them in his rooms, Slavin testified.

But the next day, she said, after Piroli drove to Los Angeles to explain his arrest to archdiocesan officials, Slavin looked in the underwear drawer again. The cash was gone, she testified, and she could no longer open the filing cabinet beside Piroli’s bed.

Some time after Piroli returned, she sneaked into the garage and let some of the air out of the left rear tire of the church-owned Chevrolet Lumina to prevent him from fleeing, she said.

When Piroli somehow left again, Slavin testified, she and Meyer searched his rooms again and found that cash was still hidden in other areas. They moved all the cash they found into a locked closet in the rectory, or church office.

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Meyer wrestled the filing cabinet from beside Piroli’s bed into the hall, and the two women carried it to the closet and locked it in, Slavin testified.

That night, church employees loaded all the money into Deacon Richard Hamm’s car, including money that Meyer pulled out of the locked filing cabinet after jimmying it open with a screwdriver, Slavin testified.

They drove it to Slavin’s house, she said.

“At a quarter to 6 we started counting, and we counted money until 10 after 2 in the morning,” she said.

The total: $47,666, plus $2,360 in checks, a jar full of change and dozens of special collection envelopes from St. Peter Claver, many of them already emptied, Slavin testified.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Richard Beada pointed out that Slavin’s testimony about her reason for the search failed to match an earlier statement to an investigator. To the investigator, she never said that McKeon had mentioned finding money in Piroli’s drawer.