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HEMY NEUMAN TRIAL | Widow's role still under scrutiny as trial ends 2nd week

11:17 AM, Mar 3, 2012   |    comments
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  • Rusty and Andrea Sneiderman with their two children
  • Andrea Sneiderman and Hemy Neuman
    

DECATUR, Ga. (WXIA) -- Judge Gregory Adams postponed the Hemy Neuman murder trial on Friday because of what he called unrelated legal issues.

But when week three begins on Monday, both sides are expected to continue to raise questions about what role, if any, Andrea Sneiderman played in the tragedy of her husband's death.

Through his attorneys Neuman, who was a co-worker of Andrea Sneiderman, admits shooting her husband, Rusty, outside a Dunwoody day care center in November of 2010.

She is not charged in the case and Neuman's defense claims he's not guilty of murder because he's insane.

Earlier this week prosecutors showed jurors a video of police questioning Neuman just before his arrest in January of 2011.

In that video they tried unsuccessfully to find out from him if the woman he was infatuated with had any part in the crime.

"Whether Andrea has more involvement in this then, or is she just an innocent bystander," one detective asked.

An FBI agent also testified phone records showed that in the six months leading up to Rusty Sneiderman's murder, his wife placed nearly twice as many calls to Neuman than to her husband.

When it was their turn, defense attorneys brought one of Andrea Sneiderman's former best friends back to the witness stand.

Shayna Citron said she was surprised that Andrea kissed and hugged her last week after her testimony contradicted Andrea's about when she learned her husband had been shot.

That hug got Sneiderman banned from the courthouse.

Citron also said she was scared by what Sneiderman said to her in a hallway outside the courtroom.

"After she was banned from the courthouse I became frightened because I was thinking back to what she said," Citron testified.

The jury was not allowed to hear Citron's second testimony, but the judge put it on the record because defense attorneys called it evidence that Andrea Sneiderman could be guilty of witness tampering.

Then a defense psychologist, who claimed Neuman is a bipolar psychotic, also suggested Andrea Sneiderman fed his delusions of a life with her by accepting and then rejecting his romantic advances.

"It's a pattern of pushing him away, pulling him toward her, pushing him away, pulling him toward her," said Dr. Adriana Flores.

Next week both sides will continue with dueling experts arguing whether Hemy Neuman should escape punishment if he's insane.