A 37-year-old woman has been released from prison just six weeks after she was convicted in her fiancé’s 2015 drowning death.
Angelika Graswald was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility on Thursday. She was picked up at the Westchester County, New York prison by her lawyer, Richard Portale, who spoke to reporters. But Graswald herself didn’t answer any questions.
‘Reconstructing her life is going to be difficult,’ Portale said, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. ‘Her day-to-day, her reality, is much different today than it was 32 months ago when she was in jail.’
Angelika Graswald (right) was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York on Thursday
Six weeks ago, Graswald was convicted in the 2015 death of her fiancé Vincent Viafore
She was picked up at the prison by her lawyer, Richard Portale (left), who spoke to reporters. But Graswald herself didn’t answer any questions
Graswald pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal negligent homicide in the death of her fiancé Vincent Viafore. In exchange for agreeing to plead guilty to that charge, prosecutors dropped the more serious charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.
On November 8, she was sentenced to 1 1/3 to four years in prison, and was released after just six weeks because the two-and-a-half years she spent locked up in an Orange County jail after her April 2015 arrest counted towards the sentence.
For the next 16 months, Graswald will be supervised in a women’s halfway home.
Killer bride: Graswald pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide over the summer for the kayaking death of her fiance, 46-year-old Vincent Viafore (left)
At the end of that, a judge may decide to deport her back to her native Latvia.
The victim’s family members previously slammed Graswald’s sentence as an injustice.
Graswald and Viafore went kayaking on a choppy Hudson River near Bannerman Island on April 19, 2015.
Prosecutors said Viafore’s kayak started sinking after Graswald secretly removed a drain plug.
For the next 16 months, Graswald (pictured in November) will be supervised in a women’s halfway home.
The bride-to-be admitted to hastening her fiance’s demise by pushing a floating paddle away from him.
Graswald was originally charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, but took a plea deal in July, just weeks before her murder trial was set to start.
In a statement through her lawyer after the sentencing, Graswald said: ‘I loved Vince very much and miss him terribly.’
‘I don’t believe I was treated fairly. This entire process was incredibly one-sided and unjust.’
Viafore’s kayak (pictured) started sinking after Graswald secretly removed a drain plug
Graswald has been at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (pictured) since November 20
But the victim’s mother, Mary Ann Viafore, said she doesn’t believe a word Graswald says.
‘Four years for taking someone’s life? No way,’ she told CBS. ‘My son was a good man and everybody loved him and we miss him very much. I don’t ever want to see her again if I don’t have to.’
Prior to her sentencing, the victim’s sister read a statement to the court saying Viafore didn’t deserve to die the way he did.
‘When I think of my brother’s last moments alive, I think of the pain he must have endured,’ Laura Rice said, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal.
‘I visualize him trying to survive hypothermia in the freezing cold river, confused and not understanding why the woman who said she loved him and wanted to marry him did nothing to help him.’