By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 1998; Page B04

Former Montgomery County Planning Board member Ruthann Aron is to move tonight back into the $700,000 Potomac house she once shared with her husband, to live unsupervised while she awaits trial on charges of trying to have him and a second man killed by a hit man and of trying to poison him.

Aron, also a former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been living in the Silver Spring home of a friend, Phyllis Book, since being released from a state psychiatric hospital in November. Book, however, asked Aron to move out Sunday, Aron's attorneys said.

Book and Aron disagreed over how much rent Aron should pay, and the conflicts culminated recently in an argument about laundry, said Judy Catterton, one of Aron's two attorneys. Book said in an interview that she had planned from the start for Aron to live with her only temporarily. She said she also does not have room in her home for Aron's mother, whom Aron plans to have visit from Florida and live with her through her two trials, the first of which is to begin Feb. 25.

Attorneys for Aron and her husband, Barry, agreed yesterday that Aron could move back into their Potomac home at 7 p.m. today, said Barry Aron's attorney, Stephen A. Friedman. Barry Aron, a urologist, moved out two months ago to stay with friends, but he has been visiting the home daily to collect mail and check on the house, Friedman said.

Barry Aron agreed that he will remove his clothes by tonight and will return to the home to get personal belongings only when she is out. "He wants to know where she is, and he'd just as soon have her in her own home than in another setting," Friedman said.

Although the couple is only informally separated and no divorce is pending, Friedman said Barry Aron still fears for his safety with his wife out of jail on a $25,000 bond.

"There's no set of circumstances he can envision that would make him feel comfortable living with her or being with her," Friedman said.

Ruthann Aron has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, for allegedly poisoning a batch of chili she cooked for her husband. She has mounted an insanity defense to charges of solicitation to commit murder.

Aron has stayed with one of her attorney's secretaries since Sunday and was expected to stay there last night, until Circuit Court Judge Paul A. McGuckian signs an order today allowing her to move, said Deputy State's Attorney I. Matthew Campbell.

Book said yesterday that she was mainly concerned with Aron's plans to have her mother visit. Book also said she had not counted on Aron's trials being postponed. "I was expecting her to be here through mid-December," said Book, who met Aron last summer while Aron was a psychiatric patient at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda.

The judge's order would allow Aron to live alone, but she still would have to abide by the conditions of her release on "home detention" and wear a radio-equipped ankle bracelet so that officials can monitor her whereabouts, Campbell said. She also still may leave home only to visit her doctor or attorneys and for six hours a week to do personal errands.