In his stirring closing argument, DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said Hemy Neuman was a "co-conspirator" in the November 2010 shooting that killed Rusty Sneiderman outside a Dunwoody daycare facility.
He did not name Neuman's alleged accomplice, but the implication that Andrea Sneiderman was involved in her husband's murder was unavoidable.
“They’re covering up for one another, and they can’t keep their stories straight,” he said, referring to the defendant and his former charge at GE Energy, Andrea Sneiderman.
Andrea Sneiderman has denied having an affair with Neuman and playing any role in her husband's death. Neither she, nor her newly hired attorney, Jennifer Little, would comment on the latest statements.
James won't say whether, or when, charges will be filed, but it's clear the odds that Neuman's trial won't be the last connected to this case increased thanks to Andrea Sneiderman's own words.
"I'm not going to be disingenuous," James told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday morning during an in-depth interview less than 24 hours after securing a guilty but insane verdict against the former engineer. "Yes, that means we have strong beliefs about Mrs. Sneiderman's involvement."
James said she was not charged along with Neuman because "I have to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt," he said.
"If I thought we had enough evidence, she'd have been sitting right next to him," he told the AJC.
Now, it appears, Andrea Sneiderman's own testimony may have provided prosecutors with that evidence.
"There were things she said on the stand ... it was the first time she had ever said those things," DeKalb Chief Deputy District Attorney Don Geary said.
Prosecutors, for instance, learned when Andrea Sneiderman first discovered that her husband was shot. According to the widow, she didn't find that out until she arrived at Atlanta Medical Center -- after she had gone to the scene of the crime, Dunwoody Prep, and to the home she shared with Rusty Sneiderman.
The importance of that testimony would be revealed later in the trial when her former best friend, Shayna Citron, and her father-in-law, Don Sneiderman, testified that Andrea called and said Rusty had been shot before she had arrived at the hospital.
Andrea Sneiderman's importance to the Neuman trial was to establish motive, Geary said. But she ended up giving prosecutors more than they might have gotten had they charged her before the trial.
"We now have a day and a half of testimony from her," Geary said. "If she had been sitting next to [Neuman, as a co-defendant], she may have done the same thing he did [and not testified]."
Geary said it was evident from the beginning of the case that there was a connection between Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman.
"We were aware something didn't look right," he said. But an affair is one thing -- plotting a murder, quite another.
James said his opinion on Andrea Sneiderman's involvement started evolving last fall.
"I started drifting closer" to a belief that she was complicit in her husband's shooting" by Oct. 11, when the trial was supposed to have begun, he said.
James said he already was frustrated by her lack of candor.
"We never believed we were getting the truth from Mrs. Sneiderman," he said.
Added Geary: "We told her, ‘You're lying, and we know you're lying.' "
James said she continued lying on the stand.
So why did she testify?
Her attorney Seth Kirschenbaum said she took to the stand to help the prosecution knowing she would get asked questions about an affair, which she continues to deny. She also denied any involvement in her husband's slaying.
"She had no idea we knew everything we knew," said James, adding he believes she was determined to testify she had not been romantically involved with her former boss.
If she had said that she'd had an affair with Neuman, which prosecutors never doubted, she likely would have avoided closer scrutiny.
"It would have put her in a different light to us," Geary said.
But by the time the trial started, the D.A. office's relationship with Andrea Sneiderman had grown toxic, Geary said, giving prosecutors an unusual task.
"We had to tear apart our own witness," Geary said.
He was surprised the defense ended up providing an assist.
Neuman attorney Doug Peters was unsparing from the start about Sneiderman's role, and in a news conference following the verdict, he said, "I believe Andrea Sneiderman planted the seed, primed the pump, stoked the fire.
"I think the evidence in this case indicates quite clearly she knew how she wanted her husband murdered, and she manipulated Hemy Neuman to have it done," he said.
Though they differ on Neuman's culpability, it's become clear that the prosecution and defense agree he wasn't acting alone.
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