With tears in her eyes Claudia Hoerig, left, with her defense attorney John Cornely at her side, looks directly at the jury as Common Pleas Judge Andrew Logan reads the guilty of aggravated murder verdict Thursday afternoon. Photo by R. Michael Semple

WARREN — It took a jury just under three hours to convict Claudia Hoerig of aggravated murder with a firearm specification on Thursday, about six weeks shy of the 12-year anniversary of the death of U.S. Air Force Maj. Karl Hoerig, the Brazilian-born woman’s husband of less than two years.

While the defense never denied Hoerig shot the pilot, a guilty verdict of aggravated murder means the jury of 10 men and two women were convinced the accountant planned to murder the man she met in April 2005 on Match.com in his Newton Falls home on March 12, 2007.

She is scheduled to be sentenced 10 a.m. Feb. 8 in the courtroom of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Andrew D. Logan. She faces life in prison.

The jury was instructed to consider a lesser charge of murder and an inferior charge of voluntary manslaughter if they could not agree prosecutors proved the charge of aggravated murder.

The defense was banking on a conviction on one of the lesser charges, describing the shooting as an impassioned, anger-filled response to something Karl Hoerig said in the moments before she shot him three times.

But, Hoerig bought a gun with a laser sight, went to the shooting range, sent money to Brazil and then went to the country and stayed there until she was extradited to Trumbull County in January 2018. It was the first time the country allowed an extradition of this kind, and it took years to get the Brazilian government to agree to it. Hoerig was held in a Brazilian prison for more than a year before the extradition.

Hoerig’s defense argued she made those preparations to kill herself, but turned the gun on Karl when he didn’t show her the sympathy she wanted when she held the gun to her head in front of him.

Indicted in Trumbull County in November 2007, the case was reviewed by Montel Williams with a correspondent from America’s Most Wanted and was featured in a 48 Hours news segment. A crew from the CBS show has been in the county courtroom throughout the trial.

U.S. congressmen got involved and Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins called for U.S. athletes to boycott the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro to protest Brazil’s initial refusal to extradite her.

Newton Falls council members wrote to President Barack Obama to ask him to intervene and congressmen tried to pass a bill, the End Immunity for Brazilian Criminals Act, which would have denied visas to Brazilians because the U.S. has no way to extradite them if they commit crimes and then leave the country.

In 2013, Brazil revoked Hoerig’s citizenship. She was granted American citizenship in 1999, after entering the country in 1989 on a visitor’s visa. She married a doctor in New York just before her visa was set to expire, and was divorced about 10 years later.

Since Hoerig has been in the Trumbull County Jail, she has tried to get the attention of the federal courts, asking them to intervene in her case, ranting about the way she has been treated and complaining she couldn’t get a fair trial because of a massive “conspiracy” being played against her by all of the officials involved in the case everyone from defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, congressmen, federal agents and local investigators.

A gag order on the case is still in place until after sentencing.

However, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said his office is “extremely pleased with the verdict” after such a “long journey.”

Paul Hoerig, Karl Hoerig’s brother, said his family also is pleased with the verdict, and he would say more after Claudia Hoerig is sentenced.