POTSDAM, N.Y. -- A Potsdam man has been sentenced for withholding more than a $1 million worth of income on his tax returns.

The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York says Timothy Schmidt, 53, will serve one-and-a-half years in prison and has to pay restitution of more than $270,000.

From 2003 to 2010, Schmidt worked as a handy man and contractor for an elderly woman who paid him more than one million dollars. The U.S. Attorney's office says Schmidt would persuade the woman, who suffers from Alzheimer's, to write checks to him for several thousand dollars, but he never claimed those earnings in his tax returns.

They say he was also in the process of having the woman's will changed to name him as the beneficiary.