Prosecutors ask judge to refuse further delay in Hoerig trial

WARREN

Prosecutors in the Claudia Hoerig aggravated murder trial have asked Judge Andrew Logan to refuse to allow defense attorneys to delay the trial’s start for a “fishing expedition” to find evidence of her innocence in computer hard drives recently turned over by prosecutors.

A Tuesday filing in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court also says the family of Karl Hoerig, who Claudia Hoerig is accused of killing in 2007, will avail itself of the new statewide Marsy’s Law in asking for the case to stay on track for a Sept. 17 trial date.

The filing also reveals that her lawyers have abandoned hopes of using battered woman’s syndrome as a defense for Hoerig’s alleged killing of her husband in their Newton Falls home.

Hoerig, 53, told investigators in January — the night she returned to the United States after fleeing to her native Brazil and living there 11 years — that she shot her husband because of remarks he made that angered her.

But she also said Karl Hoerig mentally and physically abused her. Her lawyers tried to find an expert on battered woman syndrome to work on her case and potentially testify at trial.

But prosecutors said in Tuesday’s filing that defense counsel informed them they “would not be going forward with such a defense.”

The new filing is a rebuttal of a Friday request by Hoerig’s attorneys, Matt Pentz and David Rouzzo of the Ohio Public Defender’s Office, to have more time to identify an expert witness to examine hard-drive images from two computers seized by police from the Hoerig residence in 2007.

Read more about the case in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.