The girlfriend of a millionaire dentist convicted last year of killing his wife on an African safari was sentenced this week to 17 years in prison for being an accessory to murder.

Lori Milliron, 65, was convicted last year of perjury, obstructing a grand jury, and being an accessory after the fact by the same federal jury that found Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph guilty of murder. She was the manager of Rudolph’s dental enterprise.

Rudolph claimed his wife, 57-year-old Bianca Rudolph, accidentally shot herself while the couple was packing up to leave Zambia to return to the United States in 2016, as CrimeOnline previously reported. But prosecutors presented compelling evidence that Bianca Rudolph was shot through the heart from 2 to 3 1/2 feet away, not point blank as it would have been had she shot herself with the rifle.

Milliron told the judge before the sentencing on Friday that she was innocent of the charges but “sympathetic” to Rudolph’s family, who offered wrenching statements to the court prior to sentencing, ABC News reported.

“Lori, you have taken my parents,” Ana Rudolph, the Rudolphs’ daughter, said, but “despite everything you have done you will never take my soul. This might be difficult to understand … because you don’t have one.”

Judge William J. Martinez told the defendant that evidence pointed to her “encouraging” the murder and that she appeared “unrepentent” and unmoved by graphic testimony and images presented during the trial.

Her attorney, John Dill, called the sentence “excessive” and vowed to appeal.

Lawrence Rudolph was initially set to be sentenced this week as well, but his sentencing was postponed.

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[Featured image: Bianca and Lawrence Rudolph/Facebook]