The woman who pleaded guilty to sabotaging her fiancé’s kayak shortly before he drowned on the couple’s 2015 trip on the Hudson River was sentenced on Wednesday to 16 months to four years in jail.

The woman, Angelika Graswald, had faced manslaughter and murder charges in the death of her fiancé, Vincent Viafore — whom prosecutors said she had watched drown, even moving a paddle out of his reach as he flailed in the water — and a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment if convicted. In July, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide as part of a deal with prosecutors.

Ms. Graswald, 37, who was sentenced in Orange County Court in Goshen, N.Y., will be given credit for the two and half years she has already spent in jail since her arrest. She was expected to be released before the end of the year.

“Never would I have imagined waking up one day and finding myself behind bars, charged with murdering the man I love,” Ms. Graswald said in a statement, sent by her lawyer on Wednesday along with pictures of the couple holding hands by a river. “This entire process has been incredibly difficult for me. I love Vince very much and miss him terribly. When we went kayaking that day my intention was for both of us to come home,” she wrote, adding that she believed she was treated unfairly by an unjust system.