Ruthann Aron

Ruthann Aron was born Ruthann Greenzweig in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Cornell University, she moved to Maryland with her husband and two young children, acquired a law degree at Catholic University and became a real estate developer. Aron completed several big deals and became a member of the Montgomery County Planning Board. In 1994, she lost Maryland's Republican Senate nomination to former Tennessee Senator Bill Brock, who was in turn defeated by the Democratic, incumbent Paul Sarbanes.

After the general election, Aron sued Brock for slander based on comments he had made implying that she had been criminally convicted of fraud during her business career. In reality, juries had ruled against Aron in two civil lawsuits in which former business partners accused her of fraud or other offenses. A federal judge overturned one of the verdicts, and Aron settled both suits out of court after she agreed to pay about $175,000 in each case.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/stories/debate.htm|author=Babington, Charles |title=GOP Senate Foes Trade Shots|date=September 8, 1994|agency=The Washington Post|page=D06|accessdate=April 25, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140423054625/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/stories/debate.htm|archive-date=April 23, 2014|url-status=live}} At the slander trial, Aron cited Brock's use of the term "convicted" for verdicts that had come in civil court. The lawyer Arthur G. Kahn, who had prosecuted one of the fraud cases, testified against Aron at the February 1996 trial, which Aron lost. Nonetheless, it was the first time that a losing federal candidate got the winner to court over words spoken in a campaign.

Aron was arrested in June 1997 for trying to hire a hitman. She had approached William "Billy" Mossberg, a local landfill owner, who immediately went to the police. Secretly working with investigators, Mossberg met with Aron and agreed to murder her husband and Kahn.{{cite news |author=Shaver, Katherine |page=A01 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/aron.htm |title=Aron Gets Three Years in Murder Plot |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=November 24, 1998 |url-status=live |accessdate=September 26, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925031654/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/aron.htm |archive-date=September 25, 2016 |df=mdy-all}} At the time of her arrest, Aron was planning to run as a Democrat for an at-large seat on the Montgomery County Council. She was removed from the Planning Board two months after her arrest.

In Aron's first trial, she used nine expert witnesses to argue that a brain injury and childhood abuse had rendered her incapable of realizing that what she was doing was illegal. She was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder by multiple psychiatrists.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/magazine/mystery021598.htm |author=Vick, Karl |page=M20 |newspaper=The Washington Post |title=The Mystery of Ruthann Aron |date=February 26, 1998 |access-date=December 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171214041129/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/magazine/mystery021598.htm |archive-date=December 14, 2017 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all }}{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/home.htm |newspaper=The Washington Post |title=Aron Released From Mental Hospital |date=February 15, 1998 |author=Vick, Karl |page=B01 |access-date=December 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304223046/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/home.htm |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all}} One juror held out on her behalf, and a mistrial was declared.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/trial0402.htm?tid=a_inl | author=Shaver, Katherine |page=A1 |newspaper=The Washington Post |title=Holdout Juror Says Aron Needs Help |date=April 2, 1998 |access-date=January 19, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130819141428/http://https/ |archive-date=August 19, 2013 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all}} In July 1998, Aron pleaded no contest, and in November 1998, she was sentenced to two consecutive 18-month prison sentences.{{Citation needed|date = January 2018}}

Aron's son, Joshua, was an employee at Cantor Fitzgerald's offices at the World Trade Center and was killed in the 9/11 attacks.{{cite news|url=http://ww2.gazette.net/gazette_archive/2001/200139/bethesda/news/72867-1.html|title=Joshua Aron, 29, victim at World Trade Center|author=Mensh Patner, Myra|date=September 26, 2011|work=The Gazette|access-date=August 24, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140420024542/http://ww2.gazette.net/gazette_archive/2001/200139/bethesda/news/72867-1.html|archive-date=April 20, 2014|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}{{cite web |url=http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/pdfs/Sept11_memorial.pdf |title=Memorial |website=cornellalumnimagazine.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140420002706/http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/pdfs/Sept11_memorial.pdf |archive-date=April 20, 2014}} Her daughter, Dana Aron Weiner, is a psychologist who works at Northwestern University in Chicago. At Aron's trial, Weiner pleaded for clemency on her mother's behalf. Aron was still living in New York City as of September 2011.

In 2004, Aron's case was profiled on the Oxygen Network series Snapped, which profiles female criminals, and also on the truTV series Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice. In 2006, her case was profiled in an episode of A&E's City Confidential.{{citation needed|date = February 2012}}

It was reported in May 2016 that Aron was going by the name Ruth Ann Green and living in Montgomery County, Maryland, and in Palm Beach, Florida. She has self-published an autobiography claiming her innocence on the charges on which she was convicted.

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Category:1942 births

Category:20th-century American women politicians

Category:Candidates in the 1994 United States elections

Category:Cornell University alumni

Category:Maryland Democrats

Category:Maryland politicians convicted of crimes

Category:Maryland Republicans

Category:People convicted of soliciting murder

Category:People from Montgomery County, Maryland

Category:People with borderline personality disorder

Category:Politicians from Brooklyn

Category:Wealth in the United States

Category:Women in Maryland politics

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American women politicians