A Brisbane man has sentenced to four months in jail for stealing $30,000 from a neighbor who was serving in Iraq.

Kenneth McCall, 66, must also pay full restitution, Judge Lisa Novak of San Mateo County Superior Court ordered at a hearing Thursday in Redwood City.

McCall pleaded no contest in September to embezzling from a serviceman who had already suffered a series of hardships. In 2005, his wife died. In September 2006, he was deployed to Iraq.

Based on a neighbor’s recommendation, the serviceman, whose name wasn’t released, hired McCall to handle his finances while he was away and gave him power of attorney, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

The man returned from the war in Iraq in November 2007 and learned that McCall had drained $14,000 from his credit union checking account to buy items for himself and had run up nearly $17,000 in charges on his American Express credit card.

When a neighbor noticed that McCall appeared to be spending money frivolously and asked him about it, McCall “angrily told her to mind her own business” and said the serviceman had given him authorization to spend the money as he deemed fit, Wagstaffe said.