Albrecht Muth could get out of jail just in time to celebrate his 100th birthday. The 49-year-old man was sentenced to 50 years today for the 2011 murder of his 91-year-old wife, Viola Herms Drath, a Georgetown socialite and journalist, the Washington Post reports.

Prosecutors were seeking life in prison.

Muth, who is German, was convicted of the high-profile murder in January and was not present for the six-day trial in D.C. Superior Court because of his fragile health. Muth has fasted on and off since his arrest and weighed just 92 pounds at the time of the trial. He participated via video conference from his hospital bed.

Muth and Drath were married for 20 years, and prosecutors say he acted more as a companion than husband. Muth denies murdering his wife, at first claiming she died after falling and hitting her head, and then later saying her death was the result of an Iranian hit job.

Upon Muth’s conviction in January, U.S. Attorney Ron Machen said in a statement that “Albrecht Muth has pretended to be an Iraqi general, a Count, and an East German spy, but in truth he is a cold-blooded killer who strangled his elderly wife to death.”

Now that that’s settled: Does this mean Muth will finish up his jailhouse memoir?

Photo courtesy of the family of Viola Drath