2 Testify in Fraud Trial About Ex-Salesman’s Charms : Courts: Both women say James Borzynski wooed them and made off with $82,000 that they lent him to pay taxes. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Two women took the stand Tuesday to tell a parallel tale of broken promises of love and money in the trial of a former used-car salesman accused of conning three women out of $87,000.

Joan Norton, 47, said that within a few weeks of meeting James Borzynski in the summer of 1993, he had charmed her with his sense of humor and “sensitivity.” The Aliso Viejo woman testified that he told her he was an attorney who needed help paying his back taxes and could easily repay her.

He also told her that he loved her and wanted to marry her, Norton testified in Orange County Superior Court during the opening day of Borzynski’s trial.

“He said he wanted me to become a part of his life and spend the rest of his life with me,” Norton said. “I believed him. I hoped everything was going to fall into place, or I was going to be in deep yogurt.”

But soon after the widowed Norton gave him $51,000 from her husband’s life insurance, she said, he disappeared.

Borzynski, 45, a former Laguna Niguel resident, is charged with three counts of grand theft by false pretenses. He was arrested last November in Tiburon, Calif., after 10 California women alleged he had swindled them out of as much as $150,000.

Investigators said Borzynski answered personal ads from women seeking companionship and then posed as a widowed Newport Beach lawyer who was in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.

The two women who testified Tuesday were the first of five who will take the stand, although only three are pressing charges, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph D’Agostino.

Borzynski has denied all wrongdoing. Defense attorney Dennis P. O’Connell argued that Borzynski was not guilty of fraud because he was honest about his financial difficulties. The women also often saw him drinking heavily, O’Connell said, and should have known that he was a bad risk.

“Is it a fraud when someone says he’s broke, he’s $200,000 in debt and you see he’s a chronic drinker?” O’Connell asked. “I don’t think so, when you give money to someone under those circumstances.”

As far as promises of marriage are concerned, O’Connell said, the women “heard what they wanted to hear.”

The defense attorney also insisted that Borzynski had intended to pay back the women’s loans, but was arrested before he could.

Both women who testified Tuesday said that Borzynski pressured them to stop dating other men and to quit their jobs.

Valerie, 44, who has asked that her last name not be used, said she too was charmed by Borzynski, who claimed to be a Harvard graduate. He also sang songs during their dates, she said, and the lyrics to one of them said, “I want to be your soul provider.”

The Los Angeles County woman said she was so in love with him that she once cried and begged on her knees for his forgiveness when he became angry after learning that she was suspicious of him.

“I felt that he really cared a lot for me,” she said. “He told me that over and over again.”

Valerie, who was selling her Laguna Niguel condominium when she met Borzynski, gave him about $31,000 before he disappeared, she said.

If convicted, Borzynski could face up to five years and four months in prison.