An El Dorado woman who pleaded no contest in December to a pair of felonies related to a foiled poisoning plot against her ex-husband has been sentenced in a New Mexico court to serve six months in jail.
New Mexico District Judge Brett Loveless suspended a four-year sentence against Lara Mason on Tuesday, instead ordering her to serve six months in the Bernalillo County jail in Albuquerque. She has three weeks to turn herself in, state officials said.
Mason's attorney, Ryan Villa of Albuquerque, N.M., said Wednesday that he was surprised that his client received jail time "given the facts of the case and the fact that she had never been in trouble before. But I understand the sentence."
The prosecution offered no comment on the sentencing.
In December, Mason, 47, entered no contest pleas to charges of solicitation to commit trafficking and solicitation to commit auto burglary. Charges of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and evidence tampering were dropped as part of the plea agreement, Villa said.
Mason was initially arrested in June 2013, after authorities said a plot to kill her ex-husband, Casey Quintana of Albuquerque, was exposed by his adult son, Coty, according to court documents. The prosecution has said that the murder scheme wasn't fully planned out, resulting in the dropped charges.
An arrest warrant affidavit accuses Mason of first planning to plant cocaine in a water bottle inside Casey Quintana's vehicle in hopes that he would ingest it, fail a drug test and lose the custody fight over their young daughter.
The document said she later decided to poison Quintana with ricin instead.
Ricin is a deadly poison derived from castor beans. According to the U.S. 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."
Coty Quintana initially found out about Mason's plan through a series of text messages, according to the affidavit, which also notes that she had promised him "everything" in terms of inheritance after his father died.
Casey Quintana told authorities he had an "estranged relationship" with his son, according to the affidavit. However, the affidavit states that Coty Quintana intervened before the poisoning plot could be carried out by telling his father about it after "discovering the seriousness" of it.
After Coty Quintana told his father about the conversations he had with Mason, Casey Quintana met with Albuquerque police and showed them the text messages between his son and Mason, according to the court documents. An undercover officer then met with Mason, posing as someone who would plant the drugs for her, according to the documents.
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.
Villa disputes much of the information outlined in the affidavit but declined to elaborate because of an ongoing civil suit between Mason and her former husband.
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-breakfasts in the city. Vertis Mason served two terms on the El Dorado City Council until a 2010 defeat.
State Desk on 03/05/2015