An El Dorado woman who authorities say tried to hire someone to kill her ex-husband is scheduled to enter a no-contest plea Monday in a Bernalillo, N.M., court.
Lara Mason, 47, is charged with solicitation to commit first-degree murder, criminal solicitation to commit trafficking, criminal solicitation to commit tampering with evidence and criminal solicitation to commit burglary of a vehicle.
She was arrested in June 2013 on the charges and initially pleaded innocent. Mason was released on her own recognizance and allowed to travel back home to El Dorado with GPS monitoring.
Her attorney, Ryan Villa, declined to discuss details of his client's court date Monday, saying only that he and the state "have negotiated what we feel is a fair deal."
Law.com, an online legal dictionary, says a no-contest plea is typically entered when a deal has been reached between the state and a defendant and when the defendant does not want to admit guilt.
Villa said he and Mason weighed the options of a jury trial and agreed that it wasn't a gamble they wanted to take.
"It is a big risk when you go to a jury," Villa said. "We feel like we made the best decision."
A spokesman for the prosecution confirmed that Mason is scheduled to enter a no-contest plea Monday but declined further comment.
An arrest warrant affidavit accuses Mason of first planning to plant cocaine in a water bottle inside the vehicle of her ex-husband, Casey Quintana of Albuquerque, N.M., in hopes that he would ingest it, fail a drug test and lose the custody fight over their young daughter.
Later, she instead decided to poison Quintana with ricin, the document states.
Ricin is a deadly poison derived from castor beans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ricin works by infiltrating the cells of a person's body and preventing the cells from making needed proteins. The poison can cause serious illness or death whether it is inhaled, ingested or injected.
"She [Mason] advised that it only takes a small amount, two or three granules, to kill an adult," the affidavit states.
"Ms. Mason goes into detail about how she will make the ricin in her home state of Arkansas, in the front yard ... she describes boiling the skin off the castor beans using acetone, coffee grinder, strainer and a paper towel."
The affidavit states that Quintana's adult son, Coty Quintana, intervened before the plot could be carried out by telling his father about Mason's plans. According to court documents, Coty Quintana found out about the plan through text messages with his mother.
Casey Quintana met with Albuquerque police and showed them the text messages, the court documents state. An undercover officer then met with Mason, posing as someone who would plant the drugs for her, the documents state.
During that meeting, Mason decided to move forward with "plan B," telling the undercover officer that she would make ricin and give it to him to put in a water bottle inside her ex-husband's vehicle, the court documents state.
Mason grew up in El Dorado and graduated from high school there in 1986. She is the daughter of Richard and Vertis Mason, who are best known for spearheading the revitalization of downtown El Dorado in the 1980s and 1990s, buying and renovating buildings surrounding the Union County Courthouse.
The Masons own energy and consulting firms in El Dorado and operate an upscale boutique hotel -- Union Square Guest Quarters -- along with several bed-and-breakfast establishments in the city. Vertis Mason served two terms on the El Dorado City Council until her defeat in 2010.
State Desk on 12/14/2014