Andrea Sneiderman’s former best friend testified Thursday that she concluded the Dunwoody widow had “checked out of her marriage” following a lunch date two months before her husband’s murder.
“Her eyes were dark and cold when she was speaking about Rusty (Sneiderman, Andrea’s husband),” Shayna Citron testified on the fourth day of of Andrea Sneiderman’s perjury trial. “When she was speaking about her boss, her eyes were sparkling.”
Sneiderman’s boss at GE Energy, Hemy Neuman, was convicted of fatally shooting Rusty Sneiderman outside the Dunwoody Prep day care facility on Nov. 18, 2010. Prosecutors allege that Andrea Sneiderman had had an affair with Neuman, but her defense team has said Neuman’s feelings for their client were not reciprocated. Co-counsel Tom Clegg said Monday during his opening statement that she was happily married to the “love of (her) life.”
Citron disputed that characterization during her emotional testimony.
“Rusty and I are having major problems,” said Citron, quoting her former friend. She added that Sneiderman told her, “For the first time, I feel good about what I’m doing. … I feel important.”
Sneiderman, 37, faces 13 felony counts, including perjury, making false statements to police and hindering the apprehension of a criminal. She has denied any involvement in her husband’s murder.
Citron has been viewed as a key witness for the state. During the Neuman trial, she testified that Sneiderman phoned her to say Rusty Sneiderman had been shot before she is alleged to have known. Citron will return to the stand Friday morning.
Earlier Thursday, Andrea Sneiderman’s defense team hammered the lead detective who investigated her husband’s murder.
“It’s her fault that you didn’t do your job?” defense attorney Clegg asked Dunwoody police Detective Andy Thompson after he acknowledged making no attempt to retrieve potentially vital information from Sneiderman’s cellphone.
Thompson said Sneiderman steered police away from Neuman.
She did tell police that Neuman had made a pass at her, however, and as the defense has pointed out, she was the first to mention his name to investigators. The detective said he pursued other avenues, namely Rusty Sneiderman’s business contacts, because Andrea Sneiderman gave police more information about them.
“You focused on an investigation in which (Sneiderman) said you were barking up the wrong tree,” said Clegg, pointing out that his client didn’t think her husband’s associates, or her supervisor, were capable of murder.
The investigation into Rusty Sneiderman's shooting has come under fire before.
“It’s been a rule of thumb for a hundred years or longer that you always start with the closest person to the victim and move out,” Ralph Stone, a retired GBI agent and FBI-trained profiler, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year.
But Andrea Sneiderman was effectively ruled out as a suspect even before the investigation began. Police did not ask her cellphone provider to preserve records of her calls in the months leading up to the killing, as is standard procedure, Stone said. They also waited several weeks to interview Citron.
Investigators’ lack of follow-up on Sneiderman’s boss drew several pointed questions from Clegg.
Thompson said police knew on Dec. 21, 2010, that Neuman had rented a silver Kia Sedona matching the description of the car seen fleeing Dunwoody Prep the morning of the shooting.
“Why was there a delay of 13 days before you got around to arresting (Neuman)?” Clegg asked Thompson. Neuman was arrested Jan. 4, 2011.
Thompson said police were still gathering evidence against Neuman.
It would be 47 days after the shooting before investigators questioned the GE Energy executive. Dunwoody police Detective Gary Cortellino, who conducted the interview, acknowledged he did not know at the time that Neuman was Andrea Sneiderman’s boss, just that he had rented the Kia.
Dunwoody Police Chief Billy Grogan told the AJC last year that his investigators should’ve circulated Neuman’s name to all officers working the case.
“We want to make sure … that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing,” Grogan said, “and we certainly learned from that and will certainly improve that in the future.”
Investigators also dismissed any possible involvement of a “mystery man” spotted by Rusty Sneiderman outside the family’s home eight days before the shooting, Clegg said Thursday.
“(Andrea Sneiderman) emphasized there was a connection to the Nov. 10 (2010) incident,” Clegg said.
That man turned out to be Neuman, as he admitted during a November 2011 interview with a state forensic psychiatrist.
At around 4:30 a.m. that day, Neuman said, he drove to the Sneidermans’ residence and hid behind the air-conditioning unit outside the home. He planned to shoot Rusty Sneiderman after he returned from taking his young son to day care.
“I was going to sit there and wait until he came back,” Neuman said. “But they had a gas leak.”
Rusty Sneiderman investigated the leak and discovered Neuman, who was disguised in a mustache and cap.
“I think he thought I was a homeless person,” Neuman said.
Sneiderman reported the incident to police, and after his shooting his wife brought it up to investigators again.
“You concluded it was some drunk on the side of the house,” Clegg said Thursday while cross-examining Thompson.
The detective said police canvassed the area and interviewed neighbors but had no reason to believe there was a connection to the shooting.
Andrea Sneiderman’s parents, Herb and Bonnie Greenberg, are expected to follow Citron on the stand when the trial resumes Friday morning.
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