1 Count in Case Against Priest to Be Dropped
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VENTURA — Prosecutors say they will drop a charge of receiving stolen property against a priest accused of embezzling thousands of dollars in collection money from two churches where he served as assistant pastor.
Father David Dean Piroli, 36, is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail in Ventura County Jail, pending his arraignment on two counts of grand theft.
The stolen-property charge to be dropped stemmed from the discovery in Piroli’s room of a volume of original letters written by Mother Cabrini, the United States’ first saint.
One count of the indictment accuses Piroli of stealing collection money from Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy between Sept. 1, 1986 and July 2, 1990, when he was transferred to St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley.
The second count accuses Piroli of siphoning collection money from St. Peter Claver Church after he was transferred there. Last May, police in Hollywood arrested him in a church-owned car with a small amount of cocaine and $10,000 cash, along with church collection envelopes.
A search of his room turned up $50,000 more in small bills.
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