Ex-Senate Candidate Denied Bail, Accused of Plotting Executions

WASHINGTON — Ruthann Aron, a Montgomery County, Md., politician and 1994 U.S. Senate candidate, was ordered to remain in jail without bond Wednesday after prosecutors portrayed her as a dangerous woman who began planning the execution of her husband and another man at least three months ago and then assembled the raw materials to do the job herself.

Those materials were seized soon after Aron was arrested Monday on charges that she tried to hire a hit man to kill her husband and a Baltimore lawyer who had been a courtroom foe.

In Aron’s home and car police discovered what they believe is a virtual murder kit: two manuals on how to build silencers for guns, a powerful assault rifle and other weapons, catalogs for ordering false identification cards, a stolen Virginia license plate and a suspected hit list. It contained the names of her husband, Barry Aron, and two Baltimore lawyers, Arthur Kahn and a man sources confirmed was John Harrison.

“We think that individual [Harrison] too may have been at risk,” said Montgomery County Deputy State’s Atty. Matthew Campbell.

He said he believes that Ruthann Aron, a member of the county Planning Board, considered carrying out the killings herself before looking for a hit man.

Harrison, like Kahn, represented clients who had sued Aron. In addition, both Harrison and Kahn testified against her in her defamation suit against William E. Brock III, her opponent in the 1994 Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Aron lost both the campaign and her lawsuit.