Hemy Neuman was "not crazy" when he shot Rusty Sneiderman in November 2010, but a sane player in a conspiracy to kill, DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said during closing statements Tuesday in the Dunwoody daycare shooter’s trial.
James left little room for doubt about the identity of Neuman's alleged co-conspirator: Andrea Sneiderman, the victim’s wife. “They’re covering up for one another, and they can’t keep their stories straight,” he said.
Neuman has acknowledged shooting Rusty Sneiderman but has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Andrea Sneiderman has not been charged in connection with her husband's murder. She was banned from the courthouse during the trial’s first week after prosecutors said she was interfering with witnesses. Calls to her attorney, Seth Kirschenbaum, have not been returned.
An attorney who knows James well said he’d be “shocked” if the widow is not charged in her husband’s death.
“Robert James doesn’t bluff. He’s basically publicly said that she conspired to kill Rusty,” said Jay Abt, who represents Shayna Citron, Andrea Sneiderman’s former best friend.
In one of the trial’s key moments, Citron testified about a phone call she got from Andrea Sneiderman after the woman's mortally wounded husband was rushed to Atlanta Medical Center. Andrea, who was driving to the hospital at the time, told Citron that Rusty had been shot.
But under questioning, Andrea Sneiderman told jurors she didn't learn of the shooting until after she got to the hospital.
James seized upon that apparent contradiction in an impassioned closing argument.
“Hemy didn’t hide his crime from Andrea because Andrea already knew,” James said. “How could she know 30 minutes after [Rusty] was shot that he had been shot?
"The only person who could’ve told her is sitting right here,” he said, pointing at Neuman.
Asked later to comment on the prosecution's closing, Former DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan questioned the prosecution's decision to name a co-conspirator who hasn't been charged. He said not only is it unusual for a prosecutor to name a co-conspirator who hasn’t been charged, it’s questionable.
“I don’t know what relevance it has. This is about [Neuman] and whether he’s guilty,” said Morgan, who now works as a defense attorney. “It’s great television fodder and malicious gossip about whether she was involved, but she hasn’t been charged.”
Morgan said prosecutors are not immune from libel and slander lawsuits but expects James wouldn't have made the claim unless he had evidence to back it up. Still, Morgan said, “What relevance is her being an unindicted co-conspirator if you haven’t charged her?”
The defense, at least, has James' back. In their closing argument attorney Doug Peters said Neuman may have held the gun that killed Rusty Sneiderman "but the trigger was pulled, I'd suggest, by Andrea."
“This case is also about one bad -- one really bad -- woman: Andrea Sneiderman,” said Peters, who went on to label the widow "an adulterer, tease, calculator, liar and master manipulator.”
“Andrea knew Hemy was losing his mind,” Peters said. She was, he said, “the one person who knew [Neuman] was spinning out of control."
But James, in an impassioned closing argument, said the defense failed to prove Neuman was insane when he shot the 36-year-old entrepreneur and father of two Nov. 18, 2010 after Sneiderman dropped off his son at the Dunwoody Prep preschool.
“He knew right from wrong because he said so” to the defense's mental health experts, James said. The prosecutor referred to Neuman’s defense as an “insanity sandwich he’s been cooking it since Nov. 18, and he’s serving it with a side of French fried lies.”
The defense tried to paint a sympathetic picture of the 48-year-old father of three. Peters said Neuman grew delusional in July 2010, and Andrea Sneiderman, who worked under him at GE Energy, took advantage of his deteriorating mental state.
“If you think for a second that Andrea Sneiderman did not know what she was doing, did not manipulate Hemy, did not suggest to Hemy, did not plant seeds in Hemy, I suggest you’re not taking a reasonable look at this case,” Peters said.
The defense also went after the state’s mental health expert, Pamela Crawford, who, they reminded jurors, is not licensed in Georgia. Crawford testified that she believed Neuman was faking his symptoms and knew exactly what he was doing when he shot the husband of the woman he loved.
“Two people got on that stand and lied to you in your face,” said defense co-counsel Bob Rubin, referring to Andrea Sneiderman and Crawford. Citing the life insurance payment the widow received after her husband's death, Rubin said, “One got $2 million, the other got $60,000 -- that’s the state’s expert.”
Rubin told jurors that Neuman -- who sat hunched over, head down, through much of his lawyer’s arguments -- “thought he was doing the right thing” when he shot Rusty Sneiderman.
Events in his own childhood led him to be protective of Sneiderman’s two children, who he had come to believe were in danger, Rubin said.
“Hemy Neuman did not have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong,” Rubin said.
He urged the jurors not to “compromise” and find his client guilty but mentally ill, one of the options available to them.
“Guilty but mentally ill is guilty,” Rubin said. “What you’re saying is Hemy Neuman is criminally responsible for the murder of Rusty Sneiderman.”
Echoing the prosecution, Peters said Sneiderman “knew Rusty had been shot because she primed the pump.”
He concluded by reminding jurors that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity would not set their client free. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams would decide when, if ever, Neuman would be released, he said.
The jury received the case late Tuesday afternoon. Deliberations will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
--Staff writer Katie Leslie contributed to this report.
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