Playboy Held in Scheme to Bilk Woman : Scam: Police arrest sometime golf pro after alleged victim claims she was tricked out of $25,000.

A self-described gigolo on probation for bilking $100,000 from rich women in Orange County has been arrested in San Diego on suspicion of conning a woman 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 “A Current Affair,” was set up Wednesday by his alleged victim, police said.

The woman, whom authorities identified only as Laura Lowe, invited Duffy to her home in the 1700 block of Summit Bay Place. When Duffy arrived sometime around 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 a warrant for suspicion of grand theft under false pretense. Duffy was taken from San Diego on Friday and booked into the Orange County Jail, 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 when the alleged probation violation occurred.

Prosecutors would not say exactly how Duffy persuaded his alleged victim to give him $25,000. However, Ferguson said Duffy’s style hasn’t 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.

Duffy told several of the women that he was a stockbroker with an international clientele, then offered to invest 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 last year, police said 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, to keep her from testifying against him. However, 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 upward of $100,000 from four Orange County victims. Under the terms of a plea bargain, he was released from jail in August, 1990, after serving a 60-day suspended sentence. Under the terms of the agreement, he was required to pay more than $10,000 to two of his Orange County victims and stay out of trouble.

However, prosecutors say, less than a year later, Lowe contacted Ferguson claiming 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.