The wife of Cobb County engineer Hemy Neuman has filed for divorce, one week after her husband was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Rusty Sneiderman.
Thursday's filing in Fulton County Superior Court came as little surprise after Ariela Neuman announced her intentions in an exclusive interview published last week in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"I delete this part of my life," she said of her 23-year marriage to Hemy Neuman. "Unfortunately, I was married to the wrong guy."
Ariela Neuman filed an action for separate maintenance against the former GE engineer in March 2011, a suit that, for the first time, made public allegations that her husband was engaged in an illicit affair with the widow of his victim.
Andrea Sneiderman, who has denied any romantic involvement with her former boss, played a prominent role in Hemy Neuman's murder trial. Both prosecution and defense implied she was involved in her husband's death.
DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said he is considering bringing charges against the woman. The case was brought in DeKalb because the November 2010 killing occurred outside a Dunwoody daycare.
Hemy Neuman moved out of the Cobb County home he shared with Ariela in October 2010, a little more than a month before the shooting. Still, according to his estranged wife, she was the recipient of his first phone call from jail the night of his arrest.
A day later, Ariela Neuman told the AJC, she was informed by her husband's employer that he had been fired. Until then, she had been, at her husband's insistence, a stay-at-home mother. Now, she works three jobs.
"I live by pennies," Ariela Neuman said. "But I will keep smiling. I will keep being happy. I will keep my family moving on."
She filed for divorce in Fulton County because her husband had moved to the Buckhead area of Atlanta after leaving home.
In her filing, she seeks to have all debts transferred to her husband, who remains in DeKalb County Jail awaiting transfer to state prison in Jackson. She also asks that a judge restore her maiden name.
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