While her lawyers say the evidence against their client appears largely circumstantial, the public's perception of Andrea Sneiderman may be the biggest challenge faced by her defense team.
Sneiderman's lawyers expressed confidence Friday, a day after a DeKalb County grand jury handed up an eight-count indictment alleging that Sneiderman and her former boss, Hemy Neuman, "conspired to murder" her husband, Rusty Sneiderman, in order to eliminate Neuman's debt problems and "benefit from the assets" generated from the deceased's life insurance policies. Andrea Sneiderman has maintained that she had no involvement in the killing and that her only relationship with Neuman was as his employee at GE Energy.
"Indictments are built on solid rocks of evidence, and this one's built a pillar of salt and will fall," said J. Tom Morgan, one of three attorneys representing Sneiderman. "We have some allegations and innuendos, but nothing that shows anyone is culpable of murder."
Criminal defense attorney Steve Sadow agreed that if not for those "allegations and innuendos" that Morgan mentioned, it would be a difficult case for prosecutors to prove.
"If opinions about her weren't already formed, I'd say the prosecution faced an uphill battle," Sadow said. "But a lot of people have presumed her guilty."
Including several of the only jurors to hear the 36-year-old widow's testimony regarding her relationship with Neuman and the events surrounding the November 2010 shooting of her husband, said Cynthia Rivers, the foreman of the jury in Neuman's trial. That jury found Neuman guilty but mentally illl in the death of Rusty Sneiderman, who was gunned down in the parking lot of a Dunwoody day care facility after dropping off his son.
"It was the Andrea Sneiderman trial before it was the Hemy Neuman trial," said Rivers, an administrative assistant at Northside Hospital. "I would watch her watching us. It was like she was trying to read the jurors."
Rivers, in her first in-depth interview since the Neuman trial concluded in March, said she leaped from her chair when she learned Sneiderman had been charged.
"I was elated," Rivers said. "[Sneiderman] was really looked at by [jurors] as the co-conspirator."
Jurors couldn't understand why Sneiderman was allowed to testify, she said.
"She did her own self in," Rivers said. "I do want to be cautious. She's still innocent until proven guilty, but she was not at all convincing."
Rivers, who nearly broke down as she read the verdict against Neuman, said her emotions were driven in part by thoughts of Sneiderman's alleged involvement.
Neuman's attorneys on Thursday told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that their client, sentenced to life in prison without parole, would be willing to testify against his alleged former paramour.
But Sadow said Sneiderman's lawyers would likely welcome Neuman's testimony.
"If I were her counsel, I'd pray every day they'd call him," he said. "The prosecution has already painted him as a cold-blooded killer.
"Unless he has something concrete, something that could not be disputed as fact, I don't see him having any value for the prosecution."
Sadow said Sneiderman's team needs to come up with "an alternate reasonable theory of innocence" for their client — without calling her to the stand.
"She'd have to explain everything she said before," Sadow said if Sneiderman testified. "I don't see how she gains from that."
Morgan won't discuss that possibility but said Friday that his client is "a fighter and prepared to go forward."
Regardless of who testifies and where the trial is held — Morgan hinted Friday that he'll petition for a change of venue — Rivers said she'll be in attendance.
"I'll be a spectator," she said. "I want to see how this story ends."
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