A CONMAN who cheated 10 victims of about $215,000 over the past decade was sentenced to a total of 42 months jail on Monday on nine charges.

Azman Bachok, 41, unemployed, admitted to seven charges of cheating, one count each of forgery and theft between 1998 and last November.

A district court heard that he used ruses such as getting his victim to be his cleaning contract partner, claiming to be an Australian and being able to get jobs for his friends Down Under, and getting loans from his victims to settle his legal fees before he could get hold of his civil suit claims.

He also stole $500 from a 52-year-old colleague who had asked him to withdraw $1,000 on her behalf from the ATM on Nov 20, 2004.

Instead, he withdrew $1,500 without her knowledge and kept $500 for himself.

In May that year, he forged the signature of lawyer A.R. Marican, 46, on a banker's guarantee for $20,000 for services rendered by the law firm to his sister-in-law.

The following month, Azman showed the forged document to his father-in-law, who then gave him $20,000.

In one of the cheating cases, Azman cheated a 65-year-old private nurse of $48,500 while he was hospitalised last November.

Nurse Beatrice Low, who tended to him at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, had told Azman about her interest in buying a private property after he claimed that he was a property agent and could get her one at a low price. She handed over a total of $67,300 to him.

He also cheated Madam Low's son of $8,500 by claiming he could arrange for him to buy a BMW car at a low price.

Earlier between January and March 2002, he invited cabby Neo Yong Voon, 50, to be his partner in a purported cleaning contract, and duped him into giving him $46,000 as a deposit.

In August 1998, he lied to a colleague that he had won $200,000 in a civil suit and deceived him into giving him a $6,000 loan to pay off his legal fees.

Twenty-six other charges were taken into consideration.