Some last-minute legal maneuvering led to a hollow victory Wednesday for Andrea Sneiderman in her bid to reclaim nearly $2.3 million in assets, frozen by the state after her arrest in her husband’s killing.
Sneiderman’s attorneys arrived at DeKalb County Superior Court to discover the District Attorney’s Office would not contest their motion to dismiss the freeze. That motion later was later granted by Judge Gregory A. Adams.
Instead, Chief Deputy District Attorney Don Geary informed his counterparts that he just been granted a second freeze order from a judge in Fulton County, where the Bank of New York Mellon, where Sneiderman is a customer, has a branch.
In their motion to dismiss, Sneiderman’s lawyers argued that, since the bank didn’t have a DeKalb branch, the court had no jurisdiction.
Attorney Doug Chalmers declined comment when asked if the defense would now file a motion to dismiss in Fulton.
Sneiderman’s assets were frozen last month, one day after after she was charged with conspiring with her former boss, Hemy Neuman, to kill her husband. Neuman was sentenced to life in prison without parole in March for the November 2010 fatal shooting of Rusty Sneiderman outside a Dunwoody daycare facility.
The money in question came mostly via two life insurance policies, totaling $2 million, for which Andrea Sneiderman was the beneficiary.
Meanwhile, Esther Panitch, the attorney for Rusty Sneiderman’s brother Steve, filed a motion Wednesday asserting a claim for the insurance money.
Steve Sneiderman is concerned that “the release of the funds, the vast majority of inheritance of the minor children, will be wasted by the defendant prior to any adjudication on the merits of her criminal and/or wrongful death case,” according to the motion. Panitch said she will re-file in Fulton now that the motion to dismiss in DeKalb was granted.
Andrea Sneiderman’s in-laws are requesting that a constructive trust be set up for the widow’s young son and daughter while the woman’s civil and criminal cases are pending. If Sneiderman, who maintains her innocence, is found guilty, the insurance money from her husband’s death would go to the state, not to the couple’s children.
