She’s not on trial and wasn’t even in the courtroom, but Andrea Sneiderman once again dominated legal proceedings related to the 2010 fatal shooting of her husband outside a Dunwoody daycare facility.
The Dunwoody widow’s boss, Hemy Neuman, who acknowledged killing Rusty Sneiderman, returned Tuesday to the courtroom where he was found guilty to argue that he deserves a new trial because he was convicted in part by perjured testimony from her.
Neuman was found guilty of murder but mentally ill and sentenced to life wihtout parole.
“Without (Andrea Sneiderman’s) testimony, we believe it’s an entirely different trial,” Neuman co-counsel Scott Key said.
Neuman co-counsel Doug Peters said Neuman should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, which could lead to a less severe sentence.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams said he would consider the motion for a new trial but didn’t say when he would announce his decision.
Sneiderman was convicted in August on nine of 13 felony counts, including perjury, making false statements to investigators and hindering the apprehension of a criminal. The convictions were for some statments made in court and earlier during the investigation following her husband’s death.
Her testimony transfixed trial watchers already engrossed by the salacious details that emerged after Neuman was charged with the murder. Prosecutors and the defense contended Neuman and Sneiderman had become romantically involved soon after she went to work at GE Energy, though she continues to insist there was no affair.
Neuman, she testified, was obsessed with her. That testimony, Neuman’s attorneys said Tuesday, torpedoed their client’s insanity defense.
“Lying about the affair (with Neuman) did not help the defense,” Neuman attorney Key said. “The affair released a set of emotions from our client that contributed to or led to his descent into insanity.”
DeKalb County Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Anna Cross said Sneiderman’s testimony was not crucial to the prosecution of Neuman, who was sentenced to life in prison two years ago.
Sneiderman, sentenced last August to five years on each guilty count to run concurrently, is eligible for parole in late April.
“The state can and did prove Hemy Neuman murdered Rusty Sneiderman completely outside of Andrea Sneiderman’s testimony,” Cross said Tuesday.
Prosecutors said at the time she was called as a witness to establish motive but she ended up helping the state mount its case against her.
Neuman’s attorneys said she did just as much damage to their client’s defense.
“The defense was premised on the fact that there was a relationship … that led him to insanity,” Key said. “If she lied about it, if she said a relationship didn’t happen, that undermined the central component of the defense.”
The defense argued she was not in love with her boss but rather used him to get out of an unhappy marriage.
“Hemy Neuman was a mentally ill sick man who was being manipulated, lied to and taken advantage of by Andrea Sneiderman,” Key said.
Cross said Sneiderman’s misstatements were thoroughly vetted during Neuman’s trial.
“There’s no due process violation, there’s no hiding evidence,” Cross said.
Neuman, who did not testify in his own defense and has yet to speak publicly about the murder or the alleged affair with his victim’s spouse, maintained his silence Tuesday. Sporting a couple of days worth of stubble and dressed in a prison-issue orange jumpsuit, he no longer looks like the executive that stood trial in early 2012.
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