ANNAPOLIS, Md. — She was once a rising star in Maryland’s GOP circles. Then Ruthann Aron, the former Montgomery County Planning Board member and one-time U.S. Senate candidate was accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband and an attorney with whom she’d feuded.
The first case ended in a mistrial. Aron’s second trial ended with a plea of “no contest” in 1998.
But the story’s apparently not over.
Now Aron, 73, wants to have that 1998 plea overturned. Bethesda Beat reports that Aron, who was sentenced to three years in prison in the case, has hired an attorney and filed a petition to have the plea reconsidered.
Aron and her attorney, Victor Wainstein, allege that the lawyer Aron hired in her first trial — Rockville defense attorney Barry Helfand — improperly inserted himself in her second trial at the eleventh hour, urging her to enter the plea.
Bethesda Beat reports Helfand says Aron contacted him the night before the end of that second trial, and that her attorneys, Harry Trainor and Charles Cockerill, asked him to come back on to the case.
WTOP contacted Trainor, who said he does not recall the events that way and said he could not elaborate further. WTOP has contacted Helfand’s office for comment, but didn’t hear back by the time of publication.
Aron’s decision to try to have the plea overturned comes at the same time she’s written a tell-all book. The book, “Corrupted Justice: A Killer Husband,” depicts Aron as an accomplished woman who was bullied by a husband who wore her down and that her treatment at his hands resulted in what she calls “a psychotic break.”
In a blurb for the book, Aron’s current attorney, Victor Wainstein calls the publication a “gripping, well-written true story of abuse, deceit and destruction.”
Aron’s first trial ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked, and it was later learned that one juror had withheld that she worked in the mental health field during jury selection.
The case against Aron, and the subsequent trials, had numerous twists and turns, including allegations that before trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband, Aron had tried to kill him by poisoning his chili.
Even Aron’s arrest was unusual: she was taken into custody at a charity golf event. One witness at her trial was asked if anything unusual happened that day and his response generated laughter in the courtroom when he replied, “Yes, I got a hole in one.”
Helfand’s defense of Aron focused on her mental state. He alleged that Aron suffered from a litany of mental health issues. The prosecution alleged Aron was faking and constructed a carefully laid out plan to get revenge on her husband, Dr. Barry Aron, and attorney Arthur Kahn who testified against Aron in a case related to her failed bid for the U.S. Senate.
During the trials, the courtroom was packed and onlookers were riveted as some of the audiotapes of Aron’s conversations with a person she believed was a hit man were played. The courtroom was silent during as one segment when Montgomery County Detective Terry Ryan — posing as the hit man — could be heard asking Aron who she wanted killed. Her voice could be heard clearly and carefully spelling out her husband’s name.
