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Trumbull prosecutor: Put Claudia Hoerig on FBI’s most-wanted list
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins has asked the supervisor of the Youngstown FBI office to place Claudia C. Hoerig’s name on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List and offer a $100,000 reward for her arrest.
“I searched the FBI Most Wanted Fugitive website and could find no mention of Claudia Hoerig,” Watkins said in a letter to Todd Werth, supervisory special agent in charge of the office.
“This makes no sense to me. Claudia Hoerig’s name should be listed,” Watkins wrote
Hoerig is charged with the March 12, 2007, shooting death of her husband, Maj. Karl Hoerig, in their Newton Falls home. She escaped to Brazil, “where she has been given state authorized sanctuary from arrest and prosecution in the United States,” Watkins said.
Werth did not reply late Friday afternoon to a Vindicator request for a response to Watkins’ question.
Watkins and others, including U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, have worked for years to urge the Brazilian and U.S. governments to bring her back to America to stand trial.
“Recently, I met with the victim’s father, Mr. Ed Hoerig, who complained that the family is finding it difficult to get any information from the [U.S.] State Department about the status of current legal proceedings in Brazil,” Watkins continued in the letter.
“Mr. Hoerig, who is in his 70s, fears he and his wife will not see justice in their lifetime,” Watkins said. Karl Hoerig’s brother, Paul, wrote to Watkins on March 26, saying that it feels as though Claudia Hoerig’s case “has fallen off their radar and is low priority to the State Department.”
Watkins said he also has contacted Ryan asking for his help “in what seems to be a case of forgotten justice.”
Watkins said he read an article this week about Brenda Delgado, who purportedly hatched a successful plan to kill a Dallas dentist and has been on the run for seven months. She apparently is in Mexico, where she has ties, and is eluding extradition, Watkins said.
She is on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List, and a $100,000 reward is being offered for her, so he wonders why Claudia Hoerig is not on the list as well.
As he has in the past, Watkins urged the U.S. to no longer maintain an extradition treaty with Brazil, “which is one-sided and only protects Brazilian nationals from criminal prosecution in the United States after they have murdered, raped or otherwise victimized American citizens.”