Edmond Safra’s death, which was the result of a fire intentionally set by his nurse Ted Maher, is the subject of the new Netflix documentary 'Murder in Monaco'

NEED TO KNOW

• In 1999, billionaire Edmond Safra and one of his nurses died after a fire broke out in their Monaco home
• In December 2002, Safra’s nurse Ted Maher was convicted of arson causing death and sentenced to 10 years in prison
• He escaped in 2003 and was released in July 2007, but has since landed back in prison

Ted Maher thought he had landed the career opportunity of a lifetime when he became a private nurse for billionaire Edmond Safra. But that dream job quickly turned into a nightmare when a devastating fire left Safra dead — and Maher as the prime suspect.

Maher, a former Green Beret-turned-neonatal nurse, was hired in 1999 to be one of the personal nurses to Safra, a banking magnate and one of the richest men in the world, per Vanity Fair. The job involved relocating from Maher’s modest home in upstate New York to Safra’s 20-room penthouse apartment in Monaco.

That all changed on the night of Dec. 3, 1999, however. A fire broke out in Safra’s two-story penthouse, leaving the billionaire and one of his nurses dead from smoke inhalation. Maher survived the blaze and initially told authorities that two intruders had broken into the apartment with the intent to assassinate Safra, per The New York Times. But within days, Maher admitted that he intentionally set the fatal fire in his boss’ penthouse, though both he and his wife have since claimed that his confession was coerced.

Maher was ultimately convicted in the death of Safra and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Now, Safra’s tragic death and the bizarre circumstances around it are the subject of the new Netflix documentary Murder in Monaco, which began streaming on Dec. 17.

So, where is Ted Maher now? Here's everything to know about the convicted arsonist's life today.

Who is Ted Maher?

Born in Maine and raised in upstate New York, Maher is the oldest of five children. With a father who worked as a telephone repairman and a mother who was a school bus driver, Maher recalled that money was tight growing up in his 2021 book Framed in Monte Carlo: How I Was Wrongfully Convicted for a Billionaire’s Fiery Death. As a result, he enlisted in the United States Army upon graduating high school in 1976 in order to pay for college, per Dateline. Maher spent three years in the Army, ultimately becoming a member of the Green Berets, an elite division of Special Forces soldiers.

Following Maher’s stint in the Army, his career took several twists and turns. He worked as a Las Vegas policeman, a casino surveillance expert and a pizza delivery man in Alaska before attending Dutchess Community College in upstate New York to become a nurse, according to his book. He married twice, the latter of which resulted in the birth of his first child, a son named Christopher.

Maher was hired by Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York in 1990 as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care. Three years later, he married his third wife, a woman named Heidi whom he had met in nursing school, per 48 Hours. They went on to have two children together, a son named Ian and a daughter named Amber, and the family lived in a house that Maher built himself in Stormville, N.Y.

In 1999, Maher found an expensive camera left behind in the NICU and returned it to its rightful owners, a couple named Harry and Laura Slatkin, per Vanity Fair. The couple was so grateful to Maher that they recommended him for a job as a private nurse to Edmond Safra, a banking billionaire who was diagnosed with advanced Parkinson’s disease. With the Slatkins’ recommendation, Maher was hired for the job — which paid more than $200,000 a year, according to Dateline.

Who is Edmond Safra?

Maher’s employer, Safra, was a Lebanese-born banker who, by 1999, was one of the wealthiest men in the world, according to The Independent. The founder of Republic National Bank of New York, Safra had homes in New York, Switzerland, France and Monaco, the latter of which he made his primary residence with his wife, Lily, per The New York Times.

Safra successfully led the Republic National Bank of New York for more than three decades. But the billionaire had also made some powerful enemies during his career: In 1998, the bank alerted the FBI to an alleged Russian money laundering scheme, according to The Independent.

“He turned in the Russian mafia to the FBI,” writer Dominick Dunne, who wrote the Vanity Fair story about the case, told 48 Hours. "He became very paranoid about his safety.”

In addition to concerns about his safety, Safra was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and, by 1999, was looking to retire, The New York Times reported. As a result, Safra negotiated the sale of his banking business to HSBC Holdings for $9.9 billion. The deal was set to be finalized on Jan. 3, 2000.

What happened to Edmond Safra?

On Dec. 3, 1999, Safra, then 67 years old, died of smoke inhalation when a fire was intentionally set in his penthouse apartment in Monaco, per The New York Times.

According to initial reports from Monaco’s chief prosecutor Daniel Serdet, two intruders broke into the apartment and started the fire. When the blaze began, Safra hid in a bathroom (that doubled as a safe room) from the perpetrators, along with one of his nurses, Viviane Torrente. Torrente, a 52-year-old mother of two, was also killed in the fire. Lily and her granddaughter, who were both in the apartment at the time, escaped the fire unharmed.

Maher, who was also present, suffered two knife wounds from the alleged intruders but survived. He initially told investigators that two hooded men yielding knives broke into the penthouse through an infirmary, according to The New York Times.

What crimes was Ted Maher charged with?

In the days following the deadly fire, Maher provided “vague and conflicting” details to authorities about the attack, according to The New York Times. Additionally, police were unable to find any evidence — including surveillance footage — of the masked intruders and their alleged break-in to the highly-secured building, per TIME.

Eventually, Maher confessed to inventing the two hooded assailants, according to The New York Times. He also admitted to intentionally starting the fire himself in a wastepaper basket — not in an effort to kill Safra, but rather to earn his boss’ approval and a potential promotion. According to investigators, Maher was “jealous” of Safra’s seven other nurses and fabricated the attack to impress Safra, even self-inflicting knife wounds to legitimize his claims. The fire, Serdet claimed, was started in order to alert authorities by setting off the smoke alarm.

“He wanted to be a hero,” Serdet said following Maher’s confession.

As a result, police charged Maher with arson without intent to kill, a charge that carried a potential life sentence if found guilty, according to The New York Times.

However, both Maher and his third wife Heidi have since claimed that Maher's confession was coerced.

What happened at Ted Maher’s trial?

Maher awaited trial in a Monaco prison for nearly three years. At his trial, which began in late November 2002, Maher’s defense attorneys argued that while he did start the fire, he never intended to kill Safra and Torrente. Instead, his defense pointed to missteps by the local police and firefighters (who took more than two hours to locate Safra and Torrente while the fire raged) as contributing to their deaths, per 48 Hours.

“If the police department had acted properly and allowed the fire department to do their job, the deaths never would have occurred,” Michael Griffith, one of Maher’s attorneys, told The Guardian in March 2002.

However, on Dec. 2, 2002 — nearly three years to the date of the deadly fire — Maher was found guilty of arson causing death and sentenced to 10 years in prison, per UPI.

How long was Ted Maher in prison?

Though Maher was sentenced to 10 years in prison, he attempted to cut his jail time short with a daring escape from the 17th century Monaco prison where he was being held.

On the night of Jan. 21, 2003, using hacksaw blades snuck into his cell through the spine of a nursing book, Maher sawed through the bars of his cell with a fellow inmate and used a makeshift rope fashioned out of trashbags to scale down the side of the fortress-style prison, according to The Monegasque.

Maher made it 15 miles away to Nice, France, where he was caught by French police within seven hours and returned to prison, per 48 Hours. His sentence was extended by 10 months because of the jailbreak, according to Dateline.

But Maher only remained behind bars until August 2007, according to the New York Post, when he was released and flown back to the U.S. after spending a total of eight years incarcerated.

What has Ted Maher said about Edmond Safra’s death?

In the years leading up to his trial and following his conviction, Maher has recanted his confession and maintained his innocence in the death of his boss, Safra. Additionally, Maher claimed he was coerced by police into admitting to the crime after being led to believe his wife was being detained and tortured, according to both 48 Hours and Dateline. He also alleged that he was forced to sign a confession that was written in French, a language he cannot read. (Monaco authorities have refuted this, stating Maher had access to an English translator at all times.)

In interviews given following his release from prison, Maher has doubled down — and elaborated on — his original story that he was attacked by two assailants the night the fire broke out. He alleged to Dateline in March 2008 that two days prior to the break in, he was abducted at gunpoint off of the street in Nice by the same two men who would later supposedly break into Safra’s penthouse. Maher claimed the masked men ordered him to leave a window shutter open near the nursing station — and threatened him with photos of his wife and children back home.

“It scared the hell out of me,” Maher told Dateline. “I wasn't going to put [my family] at risk.”

Maher alleged on the night the intruders broke in, he was desperate to save his boss’ life. He claimed since he did not know the equivalent for 911 in Monaco and the penthouse didn’t have a panic alarm, he set a small fire in a trash can in the nursing station to set off the smoke alarms in order to summon help.

“I believe that I stopped an assassination attempt on his life that night,” Maher told Dateline about his supposed actions on Dec. 3, 1999.

In his 2021 book, Maher re-asserts his innocence in the death of his former boss. “The real killer or killers of Edmond Safra have not been brought to justice, and the person still paying for it is me,” he wrote.

Where is Ted Maher now?

Maher’s life since being released from prison in 2007 has been filled with turmoil.

His third wife, Heidi, divorced him in 2006 while he was still incarcerated and obtained full custody of their three children, Dateline reported. Upon returning to the U.S. in 2007, Maher was served with a restraining order that prohibited him from going near his ex-wife and children, per the New York Post.

Professionally, Maher attempted to get back into nursing, but lost several jobs once they discovered his criminal past. In 2013, the Texas Board of Nursing revoked Maher’s license after he supposedly lied about his employment history and his Monaco conviction, according to NBC News. Maher went on to lose his nursing privileges in multiple other states, as well.

“He had it rough,” Griffith told NBC News about Maher’s post-prison life. “The massive publicity of this case promoted his face and his reputation, and he lost job after job.”

In an effort to shed his past, Maher changed his name to Jon Green and began working as a long-haul truck driver. He married for a fourth time, to a New Mexico physician named Dr. Kim Lark, in 2020 — but by 2022, their relationship had begun to deteriorate, per NBC News. According to Lark, Maher’s behavior became so erratic that she took out a restraining order against her estranged husband.

In May 2022, Maher kidnapped Lark’s three dogs, stole her car and her checkbook, and attempted to withdraw $50,000 from her bank account. After a few weeks on the run, Maher, under his new identity Green, was captured and arrested in San Antonio in June 2022, according to Monaco Daily News. He pleaded guilty in 2023 to larceny and forgery and was sent to prison once again, per the Artesia Daily Press.

While behind bars, Maher’s legal troubles continued. He allegedly paid a fellow cellmate’s $2,500 bond on the condition that he would murder his estranged wife, Dr. Lark, once released. According to the Artesia Daily Press, the murder-for-hire plot involved the cellmate breaking into Lark’s home and forcing her to overdose on fentanyl — but instead, the cellmate wrote a letter to Lark warning her of the hit.

Following his March 2025 trial, Maher was convicted on a single charge of solicitation to commit first-degree murder. In June 2025, he was sentenced to nine years behind bars for the crime, according to the Carlsbad Current-Argus. He is currently serving his sentence in the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility, a minimum-security facility for older inmates.

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