Piroli Admits That He Drained His Bank Accounts of $29,000 : Trial: Clergyman says he used the money for living expenses. Accountant says church’s cash deposits shrank during priest’s tenure.

Father David Dean Piroli admitted Tuesday that he drained his bank accounts of $29,000 in eight weeks while authorities were hunting him for the suspected embezzlement of $60,000 from two Ventura County churches.

In other testimony Tuesday at Piroli’s grand theft trial, an accountant said Piroli’s bank accounts had swelled by $16,263 during his two-year tenure at St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley, while the church’s cash deposits shrank dramatically.

The priest was using diversionary banking tactics such as putting his money into nine bank accounts, which “makes following the money more difficult” for investigators, testified Daniel McCarthy, a forensic accountant.

Hollywood police arrested Piroli on May 29, 1992, after finding him in a church-owned car with a Mexican citizen named Israel Palacios, $10,000 in cash and traces of cocaine. Employees found another $50,000 in cash and donation checks in his bedroom and office at St. Peter Claver on June 3.

Piroli, 37, is on trial in Ventura County Superior Court on two counts of grand theft. He is accused of stealing money from collections at St. Peter Claver and Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy.

In his second day of cross-examination, Piroli testified Tuesday that he fled his Simi Valley post in the church car because he feared for his life after hearing a church employee say the car had been tampered with.

But Piroli abandoned the church car in Burbank and bought another car from his mother for $7,000, he testified. The priest then picked up Palacios in Hollywood and drove to Mexico City to return the man to his family in hopes of breaking Palacios’ cocaine addiction, he testified.

Piroli flew back to the United States, bought another car and stayed in the San Fernando Valley from June 30 to July 21, 1992, before returning to Mexico, he said. He had hoped to bring Palacios back to the United States to help explain the arrest to his superior, Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann, he testified.

During his eight-week flight, Piroli testified, he pulled cash out of his bank accounts through ATM machines in Mexico and the San Fernando Valley, sometimes twice a day, for what he called living expenses.

“If I told you your withdrawals totaled about $29,000, would you still say that was for living expenses?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Peace asked.

“Yes,” Piroli answered.

Why, Peace asked, did the priest write two checks to pay his mother for the car--the first dated June 2, 1992, which remained uncashed, and the second dated June 2, 1991, which was cashed?

“Because on that afternoon, I’d left St. Peter Claver fearing for my life, and I was very confused, and I really do not remember writing the second check at all,” Piroli testified.

“Isn’t it true you were concerned about the $7,000 being traced and you put the check aside and wrote another backdating it?” asked Peace.

“No, that is not true,” Piroli said.

Later, under questioning by defense attorney Richard Beada, Piroli testified that he had trouble keeping track of his ATM withdrawals because it was difficult for him to convert the amounts shown on Mexican bank machines from pesos to dollars.

Piroli also explained some of his larger expenses. He spent $450 on a bed so he would have a place to sleep at Palacios’ home in Mexico, he said. He bought airplane tickets for himself and Palacios, and he often bought American goods that cost even more in Mexico, he testified.

Asked about his sudden disappearance following his Hollywood arrest, Piroli testified that he had additional reasons to fear staying at St. Peter Claver. He had heard of one previous assistant pastor being beaten by a parishioner, and of another who died in the wreck of a parish car, he testified.

Then Beada asked Piroli about a meeting at which the priest was accused of wrongdoing by Msgr. Timothy J. Dyer, vicar for clergy at the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

“There were accusations about me that I felt were untrue,” Piroli testified. Piroli said that he blamed Father James McKeon, the pastor of St. Peter Claver, for the activities that church officials attributed to Piroli.

The questioning ended there. But the remark hinted at a defense that Judge Allan L. Steele had forbidden Beada to use last week: Piroli’s assertion that McKeon had actually embezzled the money and then framed Piroli. McKeon has declined to comment on that allegation, and the archdiocese has heatedly denied it.

After a total of 2 1/2 hours on the stand Tuesday, Piroli stepped down.

Then McCarthy, the accountant, took the stand for the prosecution to testify about 10 boxes full of bank records from the bank accounts of Piroli and St. Peter Claver Church.

In 1986, the year Piroli was ordained and assigned to Sacred Heart Church, the priest kept $16,533 in four bank accounts, McCarthy testified.

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By July, 1990, when he transferred to St. Peter Claver, Piroli had six bank accounts holding $38,427, and on the day of his arrest, he had nine accounts containing $54,691, McCarthy told jurors.

McCarthy then showed jurors two graphs: one showed a steadily rising jagged line marking the increase in Piroli’s bank balance. The other showed a steep drop in cash deposits from St. Peter Claver after Piroli began working there, then a steep increase after his arrest.

“You would not expect to see nine bank accounts” with Piroli earning no more than about $600 from salary and parishioners’ gifts, McCarthy testified. “It would be an indication there could be something wrong.”

McCarthy is expected to continue testifying today at 10 a.m. to questions by Peace, and then by attorney Douglas Levinson, who Beada brought in especially to cross-examine the accountant.