Priest on Trial Denies Taking Church Money

Nearly two years after his arrest, a Roman Catholic priest from Simi Valley took the witness stand on his own behalf Wednesday to deny that he embezzled $60,000 in collection money from two Ventura County churches.

Father David Dean Piroli, 37, sat in the witness box in crisp white clerical collar and black tunic for nearly six hours, speaking in clear, measured phrases about the case that has scandalized his former parishes.

Asked by defense attorney Richard Beada if he ever took money for his own use from St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley or Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy, Piroli was adamant.

“No I did not,” he said. “No I did not.”

On May 29, 1992, Hollywood police arrested Piroli on drug and embezzlement charges after finding him in a church car with a Mexican man named Israel Palacios. Police found $10,000 in cash, church collection envelopes and traces of cocaine in the car. Church officials later posted bond for Piroli.

On June 3, church employees found another $50,000 in cash and parishioners’ donation checks stuffed into boxes and bags in Piroli’s bedroom and office. Piroli vanished the same day and was arrested about eight weeks later in Calexico, driving into the United States in a newly purchased car with two illegal immigrants in the trunk, one of them Palacios.

The Hollywood charges were dropped because the amount of cocaine was too small to justify prosecution and the suspected embezzlement at a Simi Valley church was out of their jurisdiction, authorities said.

But the Ventura County Grand Jury indicted Piroli on two counts of grand theft, leading to the trial that gave the priest a chance Wednesday to offer some explanations.

Piroli testified that he was trying to put Palacios on a plane back to his family to save him from drug addiction.

Piroli told the jury he had just taken the cocaine away from the man, and $900 of the money under the car’s floor mat was his--stashed there for safekeeping.

“He was becoming addicted to cocaine,” Piroli testified. “I believe the problems would not exist if he was away (from Los Angeles).”

Piroli said that two cocaine-dusted matchboxes found in the car belonged to Palacios. The priest had persuaded Palacios to leave them behind.

“I told him to get rid of it (because) he could not go through an international airport with it,” Piroli said.

Police have testified that they spotted money sticking out from under the car’s floor mat and discovered hundreds more in bills underneath it.

But Piroli testified that he kept $900 under the Chevrolet’s floor mat “for emergencies” because he carried no credit cards and never could be sure a bank would be open if he needed it.

But he could not explain how the rest of the cash found by police got into the car.

Piroli also testified that he kept $8,000 to $10,000 in his bedside cabinet--his personal collection of silver certificates, rare currency and silver Kennedy half-dollars that his father had given him, along with cash gifts from parishioners. And he said he kept some donation checks from parishioners uncashed because he believed they were too poor to spare the money.

But Piroli told jurors he had no idea how the rest of the collection envelopes and bundles of cash and checks totaling about $50,000 got into his bedroom and office.

Asked to account for the three-inch layer of cash found in his underwear drawer by church employees, Piroli testified it was not his. “I wouldn’t keep something dirty in with my underwear,” he said.

He also could not explain the presence of about 100 door and car keys parishioners said they found amid the cash, although he said he owned sets of keys to his parents’ house and his old Toyota and a set of keys to a Santa Paula house given him by the parishioner who lived there.

Beada led Piroli through an account of the eight weeks between his disappearance from St. Peter Claver Church and his arrest at the Mexican border July 31, 1992,

Piroli said he abandoned the church car in Burbank, where he bought another car for $7,000 from his mother. He then drove Palacios via Ensenada to Mexico City, where the man was reunited with his family.

A few weeks later, Piroli said he traveled briefly back to the San Fernando Valley to discuss his case with Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann. He then went back to Mexico City and brought Palacios back across the border, hoping the man could help explain the arrest to the bishop, Piroli testified.