NY woman’s facebook page publishing Hoerig’s complaint letters

Staff report

WARREN

Somewhere in New York, a woman has taken an interest in the case of Claudia Hoerig, who is charged with killing her husband in their Newton Falls home in 2007 and fleeing back to her native Brazil.

Hoerig, who has been housed in the Trumbull County jail since her return last January, is scheduled to go on trial this January. Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court issued a gag order in the case preventing the parties from discussing it.

The unidentified woman who created a Facebook page has been posting Hoerig’s mailing address at the Trumbull County jail and news coverage of her case since April.

In recent weeks, the page has also posted documents Hoerig has been filing in federal court over her treatment in the jail, such as an Oct. 22 handwritten letter complaining of being “harassed, persecuted and intimiated” and “accused of being suicidal.”

Another one says that on Oct. 6, Hoerig was left naked in a “filthy and freezing cell for four days and four nights, no mattress (!), no blanket, no soap, no shower, no brushing teeth, alone (!), sitting on cold metal (!).”

Major Dan Mason, jail administrator, said there’s a small fraction of truth in her claims. She spent about 21/2 days on a suicide watch, but such inmates are given a gown to wear that has no seams or strings that can be used for self-harm.

Mason said he doesn’t know if that clothing keeps a person less warm, but the entire jail is operated on the same heating system without specific controls for various sections.

Hoerig took a shower on the second day of her watch and that would also entail soap and teeth-brushing, Mason said.

A jail incident report from Oct. 6, the day Hoerig went to the hospital for unexplained bleeding, says Hoerig had been saying “she was going to die” and had been demonstrating “bizarre behavior.”

The corrections officer who wrote the report said she placed Hoerig on suicide precautions until screened by a counselor.