Ted Maher

Theodore "Ted" Maher (born June 9, 1958) is a former Green Beret turned registered nurse who was convicted of arson in a 1999 fire that killed Edmond Safra and another nurse, Vivian Torrente, at Safra's Monaco penthouse apartment.

After serving a stint in the U.S. Army in the mid-1970s, the former Green Beret received nursing degrees from Dutchess County Community College and Pace University.

A brief marriage produced a son.

While studying at the Dutchess County Community College Maher met his third wife, Heidi Wustrau.

The couple lost contact for two years but started dating in 1991 while both attended Pace and worked at Columbia Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital.

They wed on December 12, 1993; this marriage produced two children.

The family lived in Stormville, New York.

While working as a registered nurse at the neonatal unit at the Columbia Medical Center, Maher developed film from a camera he found left behind in a discharged patient's room.

The camera's owners, Laura and Harry Slatkin, were grateful to retrieve the first photographs of their newborn twins.

Harry Slatkin offered Ted the "job of a lifetime."

Shortly thereafter Maher interviewed with the personal assistant to Edmond Safra, a banker and billionaire based in Monaco who required private nursing care for Parkinson's and other ailments."

According to Heidi Maher, the Safras liked that Ted was a former Green Beret and thought he could be both a bodyguard and a nurse.

The Safras offered Ted Maher a contract at $600 per day, more money than he had ever made, but he'd have to leave for Monaco right away.

With a hospital strike looming and legal bills mounting from a visitation battle with his ex-wife regarding his oldest son, Maher ultimately accepted the job in early August.

Safra, the 67-year-old founder and principal stock owner of the Republic National Bank of New York, had Parkinson's disease and required constant care.

On December 3, 1999, Maher was scheduled at the last minute to work the overnight shift caring for Safra with Vivian Torrente (one of seven other nurses who looked after Safra) at Safra's Monaco penthouse at La Belle Epoque, a four-story bank and two-story flat at 17 Avenue D'Ostende.

Immediately after his arrest Maher claimed two intruders had gained access to the apartment and that he had fought them off, receiving stab wounds.

He had informed the other nurse, Vivian Torrente, of the assailants and had given her his cell phone to call for help.

He ordered her to take Edmond Safra into the secure dressing room while he went to the nearby nursing station, where he lit toilet paper in a trash basket to set off a smoke alarm, with the intention of alerting outside people that there was a problem.

Maher made his way, bleeding and feeling faint, downstairs to the lobby of the building to get help.

But while police and firemen got to the building, they didn't get to Edmond Safra and Vivian Torrente until it was too late.

Several days later, on December 7, Monaco's chief prosecutor, Daniel Serdet, announced that Maher had confessed to starting the fire "to draw attention to himself" as he was "jealous" of Mr. Safra's seven other nurses.

In addition, his stab wounds had been self-inflicted.

Maher had slashed himself twice with his own switchblade – once in the thigh and once in the stomach – to corroborate his story about the intruders.

On December 6 Safra was buried in Geneva.

The case was a sensation for Monaco, a tiny Mediterranean principality better known for sumptuous casinos, Formula One racing and tax breaks that attract the world's rich and famous.

The riviera's leading newspaper, Nice-Matin, dubbed it Monaco's "Trial of the Century".

During his trial, Maher confessed to setting the blaze but said he never expected the fire, part of a bizarre plan to ingratiate himself with Safra, to rage out of control.

Maher testified he started the blaze in a small wastebasket, expecting it to set off a fire alarm that would bring help and allow him to reap the credit for saving his employer.

There had been friction between Maher and Sonia Herkrath, Safra's head nurse, who considered Maher another "flavor of the month", who had gotten into Safra's good graces by returning a camera a friend forgot in New York six months earlier.

Maher reportedly believed Herkrath was intentionally providing him with wrong information, causing him to make mistakes that had not gone unnoticed, and she frequently altered his schedule between day and night shifts with little or no notice.

Fearing the loss of his well-paid job, just six weeks after arriving in Monaco, Maher hatched the idea of setting the fire to ingratiate himself with his boss and earn a promotion.

The prosecution described how Maher cut himself with a knife and then set a fire in a wastepaper basket.

He called for rescue and told authorities that two masked intruders were in the apartment.

But rather than extinguish the fire, Maher let it spread, the prosecution charged, leading to the two deaths.

Prosecutors also said that his tale about intruders delayed the work of firefighters.

American lawyer Michael Griffith volunteered to assist with Ted Maher's defense.

Griffith based the defense on the notion that while Maher did set the fire, he never intended to harm anyone.

In October 2007, Maher was released after serving eight years in jail.

Maher was born in Maine and lived there and in California before his family settled in Upstate New York when he was 12 years old.