From arson to murder plot, the Jon Green case revisited

Jon Green’s case shows how a name change can hide a history, but not erase it. The man once known as Ted Maher was convicted in Monaco in 2002 for arson in the 1999 penthouse fire that killed billionaire Edmond Safra and nurse Vivian Torrente, then later legally changed his name and turned up in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he eventually married Dr. Kim Lark.

That earlier case, first followed by Erin Moriarty and producer Josh Yager in 2002, began with a blaze in Safra’s Monaco apartment and ended with a prison term that kept Maher behind bars until 2007. After his release, he rebuilt his life under a new identity. By 2017, he was living in Carlsbad, and after a routine medical exam turned into a personal relationship, he and Lark married on Valentine’s Day 2020.

The New Mexico chapter brought the same themes of deception and control into a domestic setting. Authorities arrested Green after accusations that he stole Lark’s dogs and later targeted her for murder. In March 2025, a New Mexico jury found him guilty of solicitation to commit first-degree murder. In June 2025, he was sentenced to nine years in prison, which CBS described as the maximum allowed under New Mexico law.

Green’s conviction was upheld by the New Mexico Court of Appeals in May 2026, extending a case that linked the old Monaco fire and the later murder-for-hire plot into a single record of reinvention and escalating allegations. Green has denied the accusations and maintained that he was framed. Lark, meanwhile, has said Green stole her dogs and tried to have her killed.

The arc from Monaco to Eddy County underscores how difficult it can be for victims to get lasting protection when a suspect changes names, relocates, and reenters another relationship under a new identity. In Green’s case, the aliases did not end the scrutiny. They only delayed it.