Dunwoody day care killer Hemy Neuman’s bid for a new trial was denied Monday by the same judge who sentenced him two years ago to life in prison.
Lawyers for Neuman, who acknowledged fatally shooting local businessman Rusty Sneiderman, had argued their client deserved a new hearing because he was convicted in part by perjured testimony from Sneiderman’s widow.
Andrea Sneiderman, who has denied any romantic involvement with Neuman, her former boss, was convicted in August on nine of 13 felony counts, including perjury, making false statements to investigators and hindering the apprehension of a criminal. She’s eligible for parole next month.
Neuman’s attorneys say they’ll seek a ruling from an appellate court after DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams rejected their motion for a new trial. In his decision, Adams agreed with prosecutors that Sneiderman’s testimony was not crucial to the prosecution of the former GE Energy executive.
“The evidence was more than sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that (Neuman) was guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted,” Adams wrote.
Sneiderman, treated by prosecutors as a hostile witness, was barraged with questions from both sides about her alleged affair with Neuman during his 2012 trial. She was eventually thrown out of the courtroom by Judge Adams and, last fall, was convicted on false statements she made in court and during the investigation that followed her husband’s death in November 2010.
The Dunwoody widow insistence that Neuman was obsessed with her seriously hampered their client’s insanity defense, said attorney Scott Key.
“The defense was premised on the fact that there was a relationship … that led him to insanity,” Key said at the hearing earlier this month. “If she lied about it, if she said a relationship didn’t happen, that undermined the central component of the defense.”
Prosecutors said at the time Sneiderman was called as a witness to establish motive, but she ended up helping the state mount its case against her.
The defense argued she was not in love with her boss but rather used him to get out of an unhappy marriage.
Return for updates.
About the Author
