Sneiderman trial opens
The trial of Andrea Sneiderman began Monday. Prosecutors allege that she misled investigators about her relationship with former boss Hemy Neuman, steering police investigating the fatal shooting of her husband, Rusty, away from the gunman. Sneiderman has denied any involvement in her husband’s death and says the allegations of an affair with Neuman are untrue. She faces 13 felony counts alleging perjury, making false statements to police and hindering the apprehension of a criminal.
What’s happening Tuesday
The prosecution is expected to present more evidence in an attempt to prove a romantic relationship between Sneiderman and Neuman.
Dunwoody widow Andrea Sneiderman’s perjury trial opened Monday minus murder charges and much of the national attention that has followed the case ever since her husband was gunned down by her former boss more than 2 1/2 years ago.
Sneiderman’s attorneys didn’t waste any time tackling a timeline of alleged statements she made following the shooting which, at one point, formed the backbone of the prosecution’s murder case against Sneiderman. The state withdrew charges of felony murder, malice murder and aggravated assault just days before jury selection.
At the March 2012 trial of her former supervisor, Hemy Neuman — sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting Rusty Sneiderman in the parking lot of the Dunwoody Prep day care — Andrea Sneiderman testified that she first learned of the shooting from an emergency room doctor at Atlanta Medical Center. Her father-in-law, Don Sneiderman, and former best friend, Shayna Citron, later testified that before she arrived at the hospital, Sneiderman had phoned and told them Rusty had been shot.
On Monday, defense attorney Tom Clegg said his client, and her father-in-law, remembered it wrong.
Prosecutors spent much of the day pitting Sneiderman against herself, replaying for the jury video clips from her sometimes contentious testimony from the Neuman trial. Without that testimony, prosecutors have previously said, Sneiderman would likely not have been charged.
With the murder charges dropped, the trial now hinges on the Dunwoody widow’s veracity, particularly as it pertains to the prosecutors’ allegations that she had an affair with Neuman. She faces 13 felony counts alleging that she misled police and jurors about that relationship which prosecutors say hindered the investigation into the shooting.
In her opening statement, DeKalb County Assistant District Attorney Kellie Hill said the 37-year-old mother of two was engaged in a “forbidden romance that ended in murder.”
Sneiderman, she said, told her friends one thing and police another in the days following her husband’s murder.
“She didn’t tell police about the relationship (with Neuman),” Hill said. “She didn’t tell police about the trips they took together. She didn’t tell police he wanted to marry her. She didn’t tell police she sent him close to 200 pics of her children after he said he wanted to raise them.”
But Clegg said it was Sneiderman who first gave Dunwoody police Neuman’s name and, he added, a motive for the shooting.
“On November 19th, 36 hours after her husband has been gunned down in cold blood, Andrea Sneiderman gives them the name of the man who did it and, frankly, gives them the motive,” Clegg said. “She didn’t know, and based on the guy’s personality, she had no reason to believe Hemy Neuman committed this crime.”
And she didn’t know her husband had been shot until she arrived at the scene of the crime, said Clegg, who tackled the much-discussed timeline during his opening remarks.
“There was no doubt” Andrea Sneiderman found out about the shooting at the scene of the crime, he said. “Does she have a specific recollection about it? No, she does not.”
Neither, he said, does Don Sneiderman, who testified his daughter-in-law was en route to Dunwoody Prep when she called him with the tragic news.
“She doesn’t tell her mom Rusty had been shot, she doesn’t tell her dad Rusty had been shot, she doesn’t tell her brother,” Clegg said. Don Sneiderman, slated to testify later this week, “is simply mistaken,” he said.
Sneiderman “did nothing wrong,” Clegg said.
“She didn’t hide (the relationship), she didn’t conceal it, she didn’t know about it in advance, she gave (police) his name, she gave (police) motive,” he said.
“Rusty was the love of (her) life,” Clegg said
Prosecutors alleged that Sneiderman resented her husband.
“In their 10 years of marriage, most of their time was spent on Rusty,” Hill said. “Because of this resentment, she began to feel like she was entitled to some happiness, too.”
Neuman, Hill said, gave her the attention she sought, at one point asking her to marry him.
Knowing his feelings for her, Hill said Sneiderman suspected Neuman immediately after Rusty’s shooting.
“ ‘When I look at that sketch police did, I see my boss’ eyes,’ ” Hill said, quoting the defendant. “She didn’t tell police that.”
Clegg said that while Sneiderman knew of Neuman’s feelings for her, she never thought him capable of murder. His interest was not reciprocated, he said.
But a Greenville, S.C., bartender called as a state witness said she served drinks to Neuman and Sneiderman and watched them “grinding” on the dance floor after exchanging passionate kisses.
The prosecution is expected to present more evidence they say proves an affair. And they’re likely to air more of Sneiderman’s testimony from the Neuman trial.
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