A St. Paul man who drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from his ailing mother’s bank account avoided jail time at his sentencing Wednesday.

A Ramsey County Judge sentenced Timothy James Mathews to three years in prison during his hearing, but stayed the sentence provided he abides by terms of his probation, court records say.

Among those terms, Mathews has to volunteer for 100 hours in a nursing home that serves elderly patients suffering from dementia, a condition his mother suffered from when the St. Paul man was appointed to serve as her power-of-attorney back in 2011.

He was also ordered to write $10,000 promissory notes to four individuals listed in his mother’s will, pay nearly $30,000 in restitution, and turn over the remains of his 401(k) account to the person now acting as his mother’s fiduciary adviser.

Mathews pleaded guilty to one count of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult last May.

While acting as power of attorney for his mother, Mathews spent more than $700,000 of his mother’s money for his and his wife’s personal benefit, legal documents say. For example, he used $34,000 to pay for his wife’s plastic surgery, and another $39,000 to finance improvements to his house.

While he was spending her money, Mathews twice moved his mother into less expensive care facilities and failed to renew her supplemental health care policy, leaving some of her care providers unpaid.

A fraud investigator started looking into his conduct after observing amounts in the woman’s three Fidelity accounts nose-dive in a short period of time. The investigator noted that several large checks had been signed by Mathews and made payable to him, the complaint said.