Attorneys for an El Dorado woman arrested last month after authorities said she tried to hire someone to poison her husband entered an innocent plea on her behalf Friday in a Bernalillo County, N.M., court.
Kayla Anderson, a spokesman for the 2nd Judicial District attorney’s office in Albuquerque, N.M., said Lara Mason, 46, waived her arraignment and will remain on GPS monitoring under “pretrial services supervision.”
Mason’s next court date has not been set.
A spokesman for Mason’s attorney, Ryan Villa of Albuquerque, said Friday that Villa declined to comment on the case.
Mason 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.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Mason initially planned to plant cocaine in a water bottle inside the vehicle of her ex-husband, Casey Quintana, 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 said.
Ricin is a deadly poison derived from castor beans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ricin works by gettinginside the cells of a person’s body and preventing the cells from making the proteins they need. Effects of ricin poisoning can depend on whether the poison is inhaled, ingested or injected, but all methods can cause serious illness or death.
“She advised that it only takes a small amount, two or three granules, to kill an adult,” the affidavit said.
“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 said Quintana’s adult son, Coty Quintana, intervened by telling his father about Mason’s plans.
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 by 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 - the 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 her defeat in 2010.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/20/2013