‘Gigolo’ Is Suspected of Duping Woman Out of $25,000 : Crime: If Joseph (Mac) Duffy is found to have violated his probation for having conned $100,000 from O.C. women, he could face having to serve the remaining three years of a suspended state prison sentence.

A self-described gigolo on probation for bilking $100,000 from rich, unsuspecting women in Orange County has been arrested in San Diego for allegedly conning a woman there out of $25,000, authorities said Friday.

Joseph (Mac) Duffy, the 29-year-old playboy of Pacific Coast Highway whose lavish lifestyle was once chronicled on television’s “A Current Affair,” was set up Wednesday by his alleged victim and taken into custody, police said.

The woman, whom authorities identified only as Laura Lowe, invited Duffy to her San Diego home after telling Orange County authorities that he had duped her out of $25,000. When Duffy arrived about 4:30 p.m., investigators for the Orange County district attorney’s office were waiting for him, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Ferguson.

Ferguson said Duffy was arrested on an Orange County warrant for suspicion of grand theft under false pretense. He was transferred from San Diego and booked into the Orange County Jail on Friday where he was being held without bail, according to jail officials.

The case is being handled by Orange County authorities because Duffy was under court supervision here when the alleged probation violation occurred.

Prosecutors would not say exactly how Duffy allegedly persuaded the woman to give him $25,000. However, Ferguson said Duffy’s style has not changed since his previous run-ins with the law.

“It doesn’t appear to differ much from what he’s done in the past,” Ferguson said. “He seemed to focus on particular types of women . . . single, professional, independent in many respects but susceptible to friends.”

Until his life in the fast lane came to a halt with his arrest in November, 1989, the sometime golf pro cruised Pacific Coast Highway in his Porsche, in search of rich and lonely women, police said. In a March, 1990, interview with The Times, he described himself as a gigolo but said he always intended to pay back whatever money he borrowed.

Orange County authorities said Duffy would tell women that he was a stockbroker with an international clientele and offered to invest various sums of money for them. But instead, authorities said, Duffy used the money to finance his taste for Rolls-Royces and expensive clothes.

When he was arrested in Newport Beach almost two years ago, he was wearing a black Armani coat, a Movado watch and $800 crocodile shoes. During the course of his trial, he married one of his victims, 41-year-old Sylvianne Lestringant, so she could not testify against him. But that strategy failed when an Orange County Superior Court judge ordered Lestringant to testify anyway because Duffy’s crimes had occurred before their marriage.

Duffy pleaded guilty to four counts of grand theft for bilking more than $100,000 from four Orange County victims. Under the terms of a plea bargain agreement, he was released from jail in August, 1990, after serving a 60-day suspended sentence. He also was ordered to pay more than $10,000 to two of his Orange County victims and to stay out of trouble.

However, prosecutors say that less than a year later, Lowe contacted Ferguson claiming that Duffy had tricked her out of $25,000 earlier this summer.

“She stumbled upon some newspaper clippings toward the end of her relationship with Mr. Duffy and she became aware of what had happened,” Ferguson said. “I believe it’s possible there may be other victims because there were a number of victims in Orange County within a very short period of time.”

Ferguson said he will ask the court to keep Duffy in custody until the case is resolved. If Duffy is found to have violated his probation, he could face the remaining three years of his sentence in state prison, Ferguson said.

Lestringant, who is no longer married to Duffy, said she is not surprised by his recent arrest.

“The main thing is that he was supposed to work and pay people back,” Lestringant said. “But since he got out he has just been taking money from women.”