Brazil still playing games with extradition of Hoerig

Although the 4-1 vote last week by the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil to send Claudia Hoerig back to Trumbull County to stand trial for the murder of her husband, Air Force Maj. Karl Hoerig, is an important step in this 10-year-old saga, there are stipulations in the ruling that are troubling.

According to a published report cited by the Justice for Karl Hoerig Facebook page, the court said the accused killer should not receive the death penalty or life in prison, which are prohibited in Brazil.

Indeed, the four justices who voted to extradite said that Claudia Hoerig, a native of Brazil who became an American citizen after she married Karl Hoerig, should receive a sentence of no more than 30 years behind bars. They added that she should be given credit for time served in Brazil.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed this sordid tale of justice delayed and denied that Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins isn’t rushing to agree to the stipulations just to move the case along.

Watkins, along with Congressman Tim Ryan, D-Howland, former congressman and now state Rep. John Boccieri, D-New Middletown, and others, has been unrelenting in his pursuit of Mrs. Hoerig.

The veteran county prosecutor told 21 WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner, that he is tasked with enforcing Ohio law.

“I’m going to review it [the Brazilian court ruling], but the law provides a life sentence, not a Brazilian sentence,” Watkins told WFMJ.

While it is not a death-penalty case, a grand jury indicted Mrs. Hoerig on a charge of aggravated murder with a gun specification.

She is accused of shooting her husband in their Newton Falls home and then fleeing to Brazil before police discovered the body. The shooting occurred March 12, 2007.

Citizenship revocation

After living in freedom for nine years, she was finally arrested in April 2016 when the country’s top court revoked her Brazilian citizenship, which she had maintained along with her U.S. citizenship.

The case grabbed the attention of the Mahoning Valley not only because of the cold-blooded nature of the killing, but because Maj. Hoerig was a highly decorated pilot with the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was assigned to the 910th Tactical Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna Township, where he flew C-130H planes.

His body was found on March 15, 2007, after colleagues at the Air Reserve base asked police to check on him when he failed to show up for training.

He was 43 when he died.

The past decade has been particularly hard on his family because of the protection Claudia Hoerig received from the government of Brazil.

Despite many letters from Congressman Ryan, Watkins and others to officials in the capital city Brasilia and the Brazilian embassy in Washington urging her extradition, the accused killer was able to avoid the “short arm” of the law in Brazil.

That’s why last week’s 4-1 vote by the Supreme Court was greeted with a sigh of relief.

But as Ryan pointed out in a statement, “This is a big step forward, but there are more steps in the process. Claudia’s lawyers may still have opportunities to appeal, and even after her case is out of the Brazilian court system, the Brazilian executive branch has a say in whether extradition proceeds (much like our State Department has the final say of extraditions of U.S. nationals). We must keep up the fight and keep the world’s attention on bringing Claudia to justice.”

We have long urged the White House to use its influence to persuade the president of Brazil to intervene.

Former presidents George W. Bush, a Republican, and Barack Obama, a Democrat, did not consider the murder of a decorated Air Force pilot who served his country with distinction here and in the Middle East to be of great national importance. Despite appeals to their state departments, not much was done.

Now, it’s up to Republican President Donald Trump, who has shown a willingness to take on America’s allies.

One call from Trump to President Michel Temer of Brazil, and Claudia Hoerig will be on a plane to Ohio.