Widow’s fate the biggest question

The next morning, DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James said Andrea Sneiderman had provided crucial, damaging details about her actions. “We have strong beliefs about Mrs. Sneiderman’s involvement,” James said Friday.

Meanwhile, Rusty Sneiderman’s family has publicly said they doubt her story and believe she had a role in his murder.

Completing the picture of a woman isolated, Andrea Sneiderman’s own family and friends have remained silent, despite many opportunities to rise to her defense.

Sneiderman has steadfastly denied any involvement in her husband’s murder, or that she had an affair with Neuman.

Sneiderman, who after the murder moved in with her parents in Roswell, could not be reached for comment for this story. One of her attorneys, Doug Chalmers, said Saturday he could not comment.

Among her allies is the man convicted of her husband’s death and bound for a state prison for the rest of his life.

“Deep down, he still loves her,” Neuman defense attorney Bob Rubin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview after the trial ended.

What comes next is unclear. Despite what prosecutors have said about Sneiderman, she has not been charged and James would not say Friday whether she will be.

Sneiderman hired two new lawyers before Neuman’s trial was over. One, Jennifer Little, is a former DeKalb prosecutor who specializes in criminal defense. The other, Chalmers, is a former partner with powerhouse law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge.

After her damaging testimony, Sneiderman, a 39-year-old mother of two, became widely viewed as a pariah.

Jay Abt, attorney for a former Sneiderman friend who testified against her, called her testimony that of “a venomous black widow.”

“She played this case like it was a game. She lost,” Abt said.

But Andy Lipman, another friend of the Sneidermans who said he gave a eulogy at Rusty’s funeral, supports Andrea and believes she had nothing to do with the murder. He said her demeanor in court — perceived by some as defensive — did not indicate guilt.

“All of you saw a stoic-faced and some would say ‘angry’ Andrea on the stand,” Lipman said in a blog he maintains. “First off, I know Andrea and that face was ‘defiance.’

“People say she doesn’t play the victim. That’s right. That’s not her style. She’s not going to act up there. She has had her victim moments. Believe me. I have witnessed so many.”

Behavior brings suspicion

Even before the trial began, Sneiderman had acted in ways that made some suspicious.

She resisted attempts by family members to be more visible and keep the case in the public’s eye while police were searching for a killer, and she never publicly played the grieving widow in the 16 months after the crime.

She always seemed cool and detached. By trial time, both prosecutors and defense lawyers believed she had been having a romantic affair that helped trigger Rusty’s demise. They pointed to a slew of emails, texts and calls to and from Neuman, as well as trips the two took together.

Still, James said Friday that Sneiderman was not charged with Neuman because the state did not have the evidence. “I have to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Once on the witness stand, Sneiderman angrily denied having an affair with Neuman, to both the prosecution and the defense.

Prosecutors were surprised to have Sneiderman potentially implicate herself. Her cellphone calls telling others that her husband had been shot — apparently before she was ever officially told — and calls and texts with Neuman may be the foundation of any criminal charges against her.

Sneiderman testified that she did not know her husband had been shot until she went to Atlanta Medical Center, where her husband’s body lay. But Rusty’s father and her best friend later testified she called them from her car, telling them that her husband had been shot before she ever made it to the hospital.

“It was the first time she had ever said those things,” said Don Geary, the DeKalb County prosecutor who sparred with Sneiderman during her six-plus hours of testimony.

“We were surprised she admitted it,” said James. “We did not expect her to be as forthcoming as she was.”

That testimony prompted Shayna Citron, a Sneiderman friend, to approach prosecutors and tell them that Sneiderman was lying. Citron told prosecutors that she would testify that Sneiderman called her while driving to the hospital and told her Rusty had been shot.

Citron “went from a witness we didn’t intend to call to one we put up the very next morning,” Geary said.

Citron’s damaging testimony produced one of the trial’s most dramatic moments.

After Citron testified, Sneiderman stood up, kissed her on the lips, then hugged her as she left the courtroom. Sneiderman then walked outside to castigate her friend for betraying her.

Geary told the AJC that Sneiderman, despite being cautioned more than once to stay clear of other witnesses, frequently walked into the witness room where many of her former colleagues and friends sat waiting to testify. He said the witnesses asked if he could do something about it. “She made them very uncomfortable.”

Those visits, and the incident with Citron, caused Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams to ban Sneiderman from the courthouse for the rest of the trial.

By the trial’s end, DeKalb’s top prosecutor had referred to Sneiderman as a “co-conspirator” in her husband’s murder, an indication that the prosecution’s suspicions of her involvement had hardened.

On Friday, James told the AJC he believed Sneiderman had lied on the witness stand and was “covering up” for Neuman.

Ed Garland, a veteran Atlanta trial attorney, said James might want to charge Sneiderman. “But what proof do they actually have of anything that she actually discussed [with Neuman]?” he said. “It will be a set of circumstantial facts. You have to have something linking her to the plan, to the conduct.”

Neuman’s attorneys told the AJC on Friday that their client would be willing to testify against Sneiderman if she were charged.

But, Garland noted, “his testimony comes with a problem now that he’s been determined [to be] mentally ill.”

Love becomes strained

Andrea and Rusty Sneiderman were college sweethearts, meeting at the University of Indiana. Rusty went on to Harvard, where he received his MBA. They settled in Dunwoody, known as a good place to raise kids. Their daughter, Sofia, was born first, followed by a son, Ian.

Andrea testified as to strains on their marriage when she went to work for GE Energy, where Neuman became her boss. Rusty stayed home to raise the children while trying to get a new business off the ground. The business plan was to have recorded messages of celebrities giving personal greetings to people. Apparently, Justin Bieber’s people were interested.

Rusty was shot the day before he was supposed to travel to California, where, he told his mother, he had a big meeting about his new undertaking.

Phone and email records showed that Andrea Sneiderman talked frequently with her boss, Neuman, and that they traveled together. They had adjoining rooms on an out-of-town trip and were even allegedly seen kissing in a bar. Andrea said she endured the advances because she needed the job.

Neuman’s defense attorneys, Bob Rubin and Doug Peters, argued that Sneiderman manipulated their client to believe that killing her husband would solidify their relationship.

Money was the true motive, Peters said. Sneiderman received $2 million in life insurance after her husband’s death.

His attorneys argued that Neuman had no idea he was being used. In fact, Neuman was at first reluctant to let the defense go after Andrea, Rubin said.

“Hemy had to first understand what Andrea had done to him,” Rubin said. “Once he understood, he let us do our job.”

While Neuman is headed to prison for life, he apparently remains steadfast.

“He has never spoken badly of Andrea in the 14 months we’ve been around him,” Rubin said.