In August 2016, Vince’s friends and family gathered in the Quiet Cove Riverfront Park to enjoy a barbecue and remember Vince’s birthday. The serene location, just north of the Marist College campus, provided stunning views of the length of the Hudson River that Vince had loved so much. They had all come together last August on this spot, but this year there was a new addition—a park bench dedicated to Vince. His friends had set up a GoFundMe page in October 2015 and installed the fixture in April of 2016. It faced the water, and on the four slats of its back was inscribed: “Gone but never forgotten, Always in our hearts, Vinny Viafore, Till We Meet Again.”
Laura Rice told the Poughkeepsie Journal that her brother “had more friends than anybody I know. His friends were family, too. They keep his memory alive. They loved him. You don’t have those kind of friends if you’re not a good person.”
The original date for the judge to deliver his decision on the evidence presented during the Huntley Hearing was July 28, 2016. But that day passed without a decision, and the months slipped to September and then to December. Finally, on the sixteenth of that month, the two parties gathered once more before the bench.
Judge Freehill ruled that the state could not present evidence regarding the contradictory statements Angelika had made to Officer Bedetti about the whereabouts of her cell phone, nor could they submit anything Angelika had said in the car when she rode from the Newburgh waterfront to the state police barracks on April 29.
As for the eleven-hour interrogation video, the judge ruled that the majority of it was admissible. However, he blocked the portion of the conversation with a Russian interpreter “because a finding … [could not] be made that the statements were voluntary.”
Relief wafted from the prosecution table like a sigh. Had the ruling gone the other way, trying Angelika for second-degree murder would have been a quixotic quest. Without the defendant’s own damning words, the chance of a guilty verdict was slim to infinitesimal.
The defense was disappointed by the decision, but Portale still had another maneuver in his back pocket, ready to play when the time was right.
The judge wrapped up by scheduling jury selection for the trial to begin on February 14, 2017, as well as another pretrial hearing on January 23.
In due course, jury selection was moved to March. But days before the new date, the defense threw another obstacle into the timetable by filing a notice of intent to present psychiatric evidence, based on an examination of Angelika in July 2015. Forensic psychologist Marc Janoson, who conducted the analysis, had more than thirty years of experience in the field of psychological assessment and had testified frequently in the courtroom.
Angelika’s legal team alleged that the police had coerced a confession during her long interview at the barracks. They argued that Janoson would testify at trial that Angelika had “exhibited traits—such as higher levels of suggestibility—that would render her vulnerable to producing a false confession.” In the psychologist’s report, filed in court, he assessed that Angelika was afflicted with “paranoid mania” and possessed “many of the known psychological characteristics of persons who make false confessions.” Janoson found Angelika to be “manic, inflated and grandiose, impulsive and lacking in judgement.” He wrote: “This lack of judgement and tendency to run off at the mouth is likely what happened during her interrogation. Her overactive, energetic, and self-dramatizing behaviors may explain why she posted a photo doing a cartwheel after her fiancé’s death.”
Using her responses to a psychometric testing tool, he believed she “had learned to numb herself emotionally after having had traumatic experiences with other people” and that she was “rated as not being sadistic, cruel, vindictive, predatory, controlling/dominating, or particularly aggressive.”
Prosecutor David Byrne objected strongly, citing law requiring that the defense give notice of intent within thirty days of their not guilty plea. He argued that Portale “never gave the people the required notice. He chose to keep us in the dark … I don’t see any good cause.” Byrne went on to ask the judge to consider imposing sanctions on the defense team.
In their legal filing to fight against the use of Janoson’s testimony, ADA John Geidel wrote: “When an extremely late notice is filed, the principles of fairness and time efficiency have been eradicated.” The prosecution went on to argue that, because they had not been able to evaluate Angelika in the same time frame, any analysis performed now would be “rendered useless.”
Part of the prosecution’s countermeasure to stop the defense’s psychiatric testimony was a report from their own forensic psychiatrist, Sandra Antoniak, from May 2016. She’d reviewed Angelika’s medical records, her jail violations records, and other documents to reach her conclusions. She believed that Angelika was mentally normal at the time she was arrested but had been determined to be a suicide risk because the extreme nature of her recent experiences and her reaction to them.
Antoniak alleged that the length of time between Angelika’s evaluation by Janoson and the submission of the filing “would render it impossible for the people’s expert to reach a meaningful conclusion regarding false confession.” In other words, the state could not accurately assess if Angelika was faking a mental illness or not. After two years of incarceration, Angelika’s memory would have faded and her state of mind would not be the same.
Portale, however, claimed that he did indeed have good cause to file when he had. It came about, the defense attorney claimed, because the prosecution had “poached” an expert the defense planned to use and “intentionally” withheld evidence, referring to the videotape of the interrogation in which the audio had been enhanced.
The defense insisted that if the testimony was left out their client would be deprived due process of law, making any trial verdict defective and subject to an overturning on appeal. Judge Freehill ruled that the “conscious decision to withhold the report of the forensic psychologist [was] not justified.” Nonetheless, he allowed Angelika’s attorneys to proceed with a false confession defense and file notice of psychiatric evidence. He added that “the people will be given the opportunity to examine Miss Graswald, as is their right.” With that, the judge announced a trial date of June 13 and warned the attorneys to stick to it. “We’re going to be bringing in a great influx of jurors, so this date … it’s very important to keep it.”
Wrapping up court matters, the defense said that they had given the state all of the material from the forensic psychologist, except for the final report, which they had not yet received. The prosecution requested a HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) waiver for Graswald in order to access her previous psychiatric history. They also renewed their request to subpoena ABC News and News 12 for broadcast tapes and unaired footage of interviews with Angelika—before and after her arrest—to aid in their psychiatric evaluation.
In May, the defense confirmed that they intended to prove at trial that Angelika had falsely confessed to killing her fiancé. The prosecution’s psychological expert was scheduled to deliver a report by the end of July. The June date of the trial was pushed to August 15. At times, it was difficult for the family to believe that it would ever come to an end.
On July 17, 2017, the parties met in court. It appeared as if the trial was on track to begin the next month. According to defense attorney Richard Portale, prosecutors had approached him that week with an offer to drop the charges against his client to manslaughter. He said, however, that he turned it down, because he wouldn’t accept a deal unless it allowed Angelika to be released before the end of the year.
But on Monday, July 24, everything changed.
Deputies escorted Angelika into the courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit with a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath. Her long ponytail hung down over the shoulder onto the front of her body.
The district attorney’s office announced that, after extensive consultation with Vince’s family, they had reached a plea bargain deal with the defendant. The revised charge: criminally negligent homicide. This meant that the defendant did not intentionally cause the victim’s death, but the accused’s actions or inactions had created a risk that was not justifiable.
Prior to this agreement, Angelika had faced second-degree murder and manslaughter charges, which would have resulted in a sentence of fifteen years to life in prison. The sentence she faced with the new charge was short—fifteen months to four years.
For nearly two years, Angelika had proclaimed her absolute innocence, but with this deal she was now willing to acknowledge some degree of responsibility in Vince’s death.
The judge asked for her plea.
“Guilty,” she said.
“You are pleading guilty voluntarily?” Freehill confirmed.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Angelika answered.
He then asked if she understood that by accepting this agreement she was agreeing to abandon her right to “appeal both the conviction and the ultimate sentence to a higher court for review.” That meant, he said, that she was waiving her “right to appeal and that after you plead and are sentenced, no further review of the plea and sentence will occur, and the plea and sentence will be final and irrevocable.”
Angelika agreed.
She admitted to criminal negligence by removing a drain plug from Vince’s kayak, knowing that the weather was dangerous and being aware of the size of the waves. She also acknowledged that she’d known the water temperature was forty degrees and that the locking clip on one of his paddles was missing. She agreed that she’d known Vince was not wearing a life jacket or a wet suit. She acknowledged that all those things created a risk of death and that she had failed to perceive it. By the end of her admissions, she was sobbing, her hands covering her nose and mouth.
The judge asked, “His kayak took on water and began to sink, correct?”
“Yes,” she said. She stared hard at the floor by her feet.
He set her sentencing for November 1, 2017. In October, that date was delayed by a week.
On the way out of the courtroom, Mary Ann Viafore did not stand still for an interview. In passing, she told the press, “I miss my son—that’s what’s running through my heart.” Across the country, every mother’s heart clenched in response to her pain.