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WWII Vet Gets House Arrest

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The Associated Press

Published: March 4, 2009

A World War II hero learned Tuesday that he won't have to go to prison for what likely would be the rest of his life.
Abner Aust, an 87-year-old former flying ace and the oldest inmate in the Polk County Jail, was sentenced to two years' house arrest.

He has been behind bars for the past eight years after prosecutors say he tried to hire someone to kill one of his ex-wives.

Supporters say he's a national treasure and should spend his last years as a free man.

Prosecutors in Bartow say he's a menace who should be in prison. They asked a judge to sentence him to 15 years behind bars.

Aust was a 23-year-old captain from Mississippi when he flew 14 combat missions in a P-51 Mustang from the captured island of Iwo Jima to the Japanese mainland in 1945.

Aust has been incarcerated since 2000, when he was convicted of solicitation of arson for trying to have a fire set in Brenda Aust's house, which used to be Aust's house. In 2002, Aust was convicted of solicitation of murder while in prison in the Panhandle after offering to pay a convict or the convict's brother to kill his ex-wife, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say the second conviction violated the probation of his first conviction. He was returned to Polk to answer for that charge.

Aust, his friends and supporters say no one was harmed and he's not a threat. They suggest his difficult divorce from Brenda Aust led him to lash out verbally.

In December 2007, Aust's third wife, Doris Maddox, described Aust as a dangerous man.

"My life and Brenda's and our families are in danger," Maddox said at the time.

Information from reporter Josh Poltilove and Tribune archives was used in this report.

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