D.A. Accuses Priest of Lies, Word Games : Trial: Prosecution wraps up its case against Father David Dean Piroli, charged with embezzling church collection money. The jury is expected to get the case today.

In an attempt to persuade a jury that he did not embezzle $60,000 in collection money, Father David Dean Piroli has blamed the crime on others, played games with words and flat-out lied, a prosecutor argued Monday.

But the Simi Valley priest has also slipped up on several key points and now deserves to be convicted, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Peace said.

Peace’s comments came during closing arguments in Piroli’s six-week-long trial for embezzlement and grand theft. The case is expected to go to the jury today.

Piroli was arrested May 29, 1992, when police in Hollywood found him and a Mexican national, Israel Palacios, sitting in a church-owned Chevrolet with $10,000 in small bills, collection envelopes and trace amounts of cocaine.

Church officials later found bundles of cash in Piroli’s room totaling nearly $50,000. The charges stem from his tenure at both St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley and Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy.

In his closing arguments, defense attorney Richard J. Beada said the prosecutor is the one who has consistently deceived the jury during the trial.

Beada noted that Peace had earlier asked Piroli on the witness stand whether he smokes crack cocaine. She never presented a shred of evidence to suggest that he does, Beada contended. Piroli denied that he smoked crack.

Beada said Peace lacked evidence to convict his client and is trying to plant negative images of Piroli in the minds of the jurors.

“There is no evidence about him using crack, smoking crack,” Beada declared, angrily. “If there was, you’d be seeing it.”

Although Piroli faces charges of skimming money during his tenure at both parishes, Peace spent nearly her entire three-hour argument on the priest’s alleged theft of money from St. Peter Claver.

Peace said collections at the church nearly doubled after Piroli was arrested and suspended. In the six months before his arrest, collections stood at $13,000, she said. They rose to $25,000 in the six months after he departed, she said.

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Peace devoted much of her argument to reiterating testimony that had been given by prosecution witnesses. But she also took pains to point out what she believes have been major inconsistencies in statements Piroli has made.

She also noted that a church official at St. Peter Claver had testified to seeing Piroli dip his hands into a church collection bag April 26, 1992, take out some cash and then put it into a grocery bag.

When he was arrested a month later, Piroli had a grocery bag with money in the back seat of his church-owned car and in the trunk.

“What a coincidence,” Peace remarked.

Peace also noted that the defendant told authorities upon arrest that he had stopped in Hollywood to buy a suitcase at a flea market for Israel Palacios, the Mexican national whom he claimed to be taking to the airport.

“That’s very important,” Peace said of that statement to police. “That’s not true.”

Peace said a security guard at a nearby Sears, Roebuck & Co. store saw Piroli’s Chevrolet Lumina parked near another car and called police because he suspected the occupants of the cars were looters. The men in the cars had been passing some type of bags back and forth, Peace said.

The officers who arrived found $934 under a floor mat, much of it in denominations of $1 and $5 bills, Peace said. Piroli explained to the officers that he had withdrawn the money from the bank.

“In court, he does not give us the same explanation because we have bank records,” the prosecutor said. Instead, Piroli said on the witness stand that the money came from Mass stipends he had saved over the previous six years, Peace said.

Peace said some of the money found in Piroli’s room and office at St. Peter Claver was folded like an airplane, which is how some of the parish’s children put money in the collection plates.

“There is no doubt that this is missing collection money,” she said.