A 38-year-old woman who forced her way into her estranged husband's home in East Lyme in December 2016 and stabbed him with a folding knife was sentenced Tuesday in New London Superior Court to three and a half years in prison.

Tina K. Brooks-Wolff, incarcerated at the Janet S. York Correctional Institution, pleaded guilty recently to attempted first-degree assault.

The husband and Brooks-Wolff, who have children together, had been separated for at least six years prior to the Dec. 16, 2016, incident, according to testimony in court and a police report of the incident.

Brooks-Wolff had ongoing problems with the estranged husband, who had obtained a protective order, which Brooks-Wolff had been charged at least twice with violating.

"This had been a relationship which had long expired, except in Ms. Brooks-Wolff's mind," prosecutor Lawrence J. Tytla said.

The male victim is unidentified in the police report, as is his live-in girlfriend, who also is listed as a victim.

Judge Hillary B. Strackbein imposed the sentence of 10 years in prison, suspended after three and a half years served, followed by three years of probation, and issued a lifetime protective order that prohibits Brooks-Wolff from having contact with the victim.

According to the state, the man was leaving the home when he opened the door and Brooks-Wolff entered and stabbed him in the neck with a folding knife. She held on to him with the intent of waiting for him to pass out and then killing the man's girlfriend, according to the prosecutor. The girlfriend called 911, and the victim was restraining Brooks-Wolff, who still was holding the knife, when police arrived.

She inflicted a knife wound on the side of the victim's neck that was a half-inch wide and 2 inches deep, according to the police report.

Brooks-Wolff told police she was living in a shelter in Norwich and was riding a bus to her job in Old Saybrook when she saw her estranged husband's car parked in front of his girlfriend's home on Boston Post Road. According to a police report, she told an officer she became angry and asked the bus driver to let her off. She said when she went to the door, the estranged husband answered and she stabbed him.

She maintains she stabbed the victim in self-defense, according to her attorney, M. Fred DeCaprio. He thought the defense would have a difficult time providing the self-defense claim at trial, so Brooks-Wolff entered her plea under the Alford Doctrine. The Alford plea indicates she doesn't agree with the state's version of the case but does not want to risk a harsher sentence if convicted at trial.

The prosecutor said that if Brooks-Wolff violates the protective order or the terms of her probation, "she should not expect to get any consideration whatsoever" in court.

k.florin@theday.com