The Associated Press reported on Thursday that 37-year-old Poughkeepsie resident Angelika Graswald—who admitted in June 2016 to removing the plug and paddle from her fiancé’s kayak in 2015, which resulted in his death by drowning—was released from prison.
In November, Graswald was sentenced to 15 months to four years in prison after she pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the death of 46-year-old Vincent Viafore in the Hudson River. After Graswald pled guilty to the crime, her attorney told People that he expected her to be home in December, due to the period she had already spent in prison awaiting trial (since her arrest on April 30, 2015), which counts as time served.
Graswald had initially been charged with second-degree murder before accepting the plea bargain in July. She has maintained she never intended to kill Viafore, but as a stipulation of her plea relented that she reasonably should have known the risks of leaving her fiancé with little way to arrive safely on shore from the reportedly choppy Hudson water.
Prosecutors say that Graswald might face deportation to Latvia, where she was born, after parole.