A Colorado Springs woman accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her ex-fiance faces up to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to felony charges of attempted manslaughter and retaliation against a witness or victim in a civil case. 

Unbeknownst to Vanessa Lavaty, 33, the hit man was an undercover Colorado Springs detective, according to an affidavit obtained by The Gazette. 

Lavaty, who originally faced three charges of attempted first-degree murder, tried to arrange a hit on Timothy Hanes three days before a shared custody hearing over their 2-year-old daughter was set to take place, the affidavit states. 

Four months before trying to arrange the hit, Lavaty asked her then-boyfriend, Marty Jorgenson, 50, for help finding a person to kill Hanes. As time went on, she made comments such as, “I want his (expletive) buried,” and “I really want this (expletive) dead,” according to previous reporting by The Gazette.

A detective who testified at Lavaty’s preliminary hearing in August 2022 said police began investigating after Jorgenson came to the Colorado Springs Police Department on May 16, 2022, concerned about Lavaty’s requests.

That same night an undercover officer posing as a hit man arranged to meet with Lavaty and Jorgenson at a Taco Bell in east Colorado Springs, where prosecutors say Lavaty agreed to pay him $4,000 to kill Hanes. 

The detective who posed as the hit man testified that he “gave her opportunities to not move forward with it.”

On Thursday, Lavaty’s attorney Edward McNeal Favorite II announced that his client had accepted a deal with prosecutors in which she agreed to plead guilty to charges of attempted manslaughter and retaliation. 

Judge William Moller told Lavaty that she would be sentenced to at least four years in the Department of Corrections with a maximum possible sentence of 16 years. Moller added that the sentences on both charges will run concurrently, or at the same time.

Lavaty, who remains free on a $75,000 bond, is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 28.