NEWPORT BEACH : Bride Has to Testify at Duffy Hearing

The day before he was to go to court, Joe (Mac) Duffy, a handsome Scot accused of bilking more than $100,000 from rich, unsuspecting women around the globe, married one of his alleged victims so that Orange County prosecutors couldn’t force her to testify.

Sylvianne Lestringant, 41, a woman 13 years Duffy’s senior who walks with a cane, said she loves him and forgives him. On Thursday, in an interview, she told of the couple’s plans to fly to Las Vegas for a quick marriage, in part so she would not have to give testimony that could incriminate Duffy.

But Duffy, a Newport Beach resident, and Lestringant, his French bride of one day, got a rude awakening Friday when a Harbor Municipal Court judge ruled that Lestringant had to testify because she is one of her husband’s alleged victims.

Things went from bad to worse for Duffy, a self-described professional golfer, at his pretrial hearing on grand theft charges as a parade of women in their late 30s to 50s bitterly recounted how he had conned them out of Rolex watches, fancy clothes and thousands of dollars under the pretext of investing their money on the European stock market.

Sporting tailored suits and stylish hats, the bejeweled women sat together along with nearly a dozen others who say they, too, were victimized but did not press charges because of publicity surrounding the case.

Duffy was arrested last November on complaints from at least nine women who say he stole more than $100,000 from them. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing a $1,000 Armani coat, a Movado watch and $800 crocodile shoes. In a bizarre twist, Lestringant, one of the women who had pressed charges against him, later put up $20,000 bail to keep him out of jail.

Since the investigation began, prosecutors say, they have received dozens of phone calls from around the country and Europe from other women who were allegedly swindled by Duffy.

Lestringant testified, however, that her faith is not shaken in her new husband.

“He’s not the way the police say he is at all,” she said. “He wants to change, he wants to pay back the women.”

But other victims described Duffy as a slick con man with a variety of methods of getting money to support a lavish life style.

In the alleged scheme, the women would give Duffy a minimum of $2,000 in exchange for a 34% return on their money. None of the women asked for written receipts or verified if Duffy was actually a stockbroker.

“He was very charming, he dressed well, he drove fancy cars . . . he had such a fortune it didn’t seem like he would try to steal from me,” said one of the women who did not testify.

According to prosecutors, Duffy used the same ruse on a Laguna Hills woman who makes her living as a stockbroker. The woman, Sharon Butler, testified that she charged a $15,000 Rolex watch for Duffy on a credit card, and gave him another $15,000. One installment, a $10,000 check, was apparently used by Duffy to buy a 1969 Rolls-Royce, according to court testimony.

“You think you’re an intelligent woman and something like this could never happen to you, but it can,” Butler said, adding that Duffy convinced her to buy him the watch.

Throughout the hearing, Duffy sat impassively, dressed nattily in a charcoal gray jacket, brown tasseled loafers and black pants. He and Lestringant refused to answer questions about their marriage or other aspects of the case.

One woman, Diane Lampe, used her credit card to buy $1,500 worth shoes at a department store for Duffy, she testified.

Harbor Municipal Court Judge Christopher W. Strople ordered Duffy held over for trial on three charges of felony grand theft. He also doubled bail to $40,000 and Duffy was taken back into custody.

“The guy is a con man,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Cafferty told the judge in asking for higher bail. “I don’t think, if his feet ever hit the streets again, that we will see him again.”