“You may proceed,” he told her.
Sitting between Morgan and Clegg at the defense table, Andrea cast her eyes down, shooting nervous glances in the forewoman’s direction.
“We the jury find the defendant Andrea Sneiderman, count one, hindering the apprehension of a criminal,” she began, “guilty.”
Andrea’s head dropped and she stared at the table.
“Count two,” continued the forewoman in a strong voice, “concealment of material facts: guilty.”
Andrea now breathed more heavily.
“Count three, false statement, guilty.”
On it went: guilty on a total of nine counts, not guilty on four. The form was shown the prosecution and the defense for their approval. The jury was polled and each panelist affirmed the decision.
* * *
As the trial moved to sentencing the next day, the extent of Andrea Sneiderman’s fall came into stark relief. Once a promising young manager at a major corporation, with a successful husband, a beautiful big house, and an active social life in one of Atlanta’s premier suburbs, Andrea was now led into court by a bailiff, not through the front door, but from the prisoner’s entrance, paraded in front of the pool camera. Gone were the smart sweaters and blouses and skirts. She wore an orange jumpsuit with DEKALB COUNTY JAIL stenciled on the back.
It was the same uniform that Hemy wore on his first court date.
She had on no makeup. Her hair was pushed back behind her ears. She took her seat at the defense table, embraced Clegg, and faced her fate.
Sentencing meant victim impact statements. Steven Sneiderman, whose wrongful death lawsuit against Andrea was still pressing on, lambasted her “pathetic narcissism” and called her a “common criminal” who despite the lack of a murder charge still should be blamed for Rusty’s murder. “Without her lies and betrayal,” Steven said, “Rusty would still be here with his children.” Andrea’s friends came to her defense, imploring the judge for mercy for the sake of Ian and Sophia. As Andrea wept, Elizabeth Stansbury quoted Ian as telling her, “Miss Elizabeth, I can’t see my mommy, but she’s not dead.”
In arguments before the judge, DA James sought twenty years in prison; Clegg asked for five years’ probation.
Finally it was left for Andrea Sneiderman to speak for herself. She walked up to the witness stand. Twice she braced herself with her left hand as she went up the two steps, then turned and raised her right hand to take the oath. Her mouth was downturned. Her voice choked as she spelled her last name for the record.
“Mrs. Sneiderman,” the judge began, “you have been found guilty of various charges by a jury and you do have a right to make a statement on your behalf before a sentence is imposed.” He also told her she had a right to appeal. “At this point in time you are more than welcome to make a statement, you don’t have to make a statement, it is completely up to you. Would you like to make a statement to me at this point in time?”
“I would,” she said.
“You may proceed.”
She folded her hands in front of her and read off a paper.
“Your Honor, I’m here to ask for your leniency for the sake of my children,” she said in a shaky voice. “I am going to try to find the words to describe what it’s been like—an indescribable and unimaginable three years.
“I met Rusty when I was eighteen. We fell in love and began our futures together. After having children I worked from home, and GE was my first job back in an office environment. It was an exciting and terrifying time for me. I didn’t know what to expect. At first I thought my boss, Mr. Neuman, was a nice guy taking an interest in me as his new employee. He was showing and teaching me the business, and I was appreciative. I believed he controlled my career and I let him therefore control my time and too much of my life.
“I wanted to do well and I thought that being nice to him was the answer. One of my greatest regrets will always be allowing this predator into my life or not being stronger for not dispelling his advances sooner.”
She sniffled and continued. “I viewed Mr. Neuman as a mentor, a kind and helpful man, a father of three. I never thought Mr. Neuman was capable of this murder. As time went on our friendship grew, so too did my reliance on him at work. The line of appropriate conduct clearly blurred. In hindsight I should have told Rusty about his advances. I should have quit my job and filed a report with HR and hid from Mr. Neuman. There are so many reasons that I didn’t. Yes, I was flattered by what seemed like harmless attention. I thought I could handle him. I thought he was just a man being a man, and the things that I did like introducing him to Rusty and sending him pictures of our happy family—they all backfired.
“I didn’t know this mild-mannered executive was capable of killing anyone. In hindsight knowing now that Mr. Neuman is a murderer, I wish I would have immediately opened my GE emails and gone through them as this court has done for signs of what can now be seen as an obsession with me.
“What I remembered as isolated inappropriate and insignificant comments tell a different story when read in chronological order and with the knowledge that Mr. Neuman killed my husband. I am shamed by and apologize for my emails. I regret sharing anything personal with this man; allowing him to get too close to me on a personal level was a complete betrayal as I’ve never shared my personal feelings with any man other than Rusty.
“But I want to be clear. There was no physical romance between Mr. Neuman and me. No sex. No kissing. Nothing other than putting my head on his shoulder to cry and holding his hand on one occasion to comfort him. I was never leaving my true love, Rusty, and our children, and I made that clear. Especially in October of 2010.
“After November 18, 2010, when Mr. Neuman killed Rusty, I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating, my life was misery without Rusty and if not for my children I wanted to die. I felt those exact same feelings when visiting Rusty’s grave site with Sophia and Ian last week for the first time in a year.”
Andrea struggled now to speak, her voice choking with emotion.
“Despite my state of mind following the murder, I did nothing to obstruct justice in any way. I gave the police names, passwords, access to all of my personal and GE computers and phone information,” she continued. “When asked on November 19, 2010, if I knew anyone interested in breaking up my family, I said yes, and immediately gave Mr. Neuman’s name to the police. At the time I felt great apprehension about giving the name of my boss, someone who I thought was a friend, to the police as a murder suspect. But I was asked a question and I answered it truthfully.
“I later took the stand at Mr. Neuman’s murder trial because I wanted to prove that he was sane. I did not prepare for my testimony. I didn’t review any emails. And I ignored all of the people who told me not to testify.”
Staring at James, anger in her face, she said, “I was shocked when the prosecution began attacking me and making me the focal point of Mr. Neuman’s trial. Without an attorney to object to the inappropriate and irrelevant questioning, I fought back and I tried to defend myself.”
She turned a page and then looked at the judge. “I’m embarrassed when I watch the tape of my testimony and I feel it does not represent who I am.
“Hemy Neuman has already robbed my children of their father and his love,” she continued, breaking down. “Rusty is no longer here to play baseball with Ian or to carry Sophia on his shoulders. He will never have the chance to raise his children. He should be at Ian’s bar mitzvah.”
She coughed and sniffled. “He should be there to walk Sophia down the aisle. He should be there the day they graduate from high school and college. He will never get to sit at the head of the Passover table again, or with his grandchildren. He deserved to have that. There is an entire history that’s been erased by Mr. Neuman.
“Sophia and Ian desperately need me to help fill that role for them. They have already suffered so much. Since last August, they’ve had no parent to join them at school events, to take them to the playground, or to go have an i
ce cream all because the state wrongly charged me with a murder that I had nothing to do with and would do anything to undo.”
Andrea began to cry. “Sophia and Ian have been punished enough. Please, let me go home to my kids. Mr. Neuman changed my children’s lives forever by killing their father. Please don’t make them live without their mother. Thank you.”
The judge said, “Thank you,” and looked toward the lawyer tables. “Mr. James, anything?”
“No, sir,” said the DA.
“Mr. Clegg, anything else?”
“No, sir,” said Andrea’s attorney.
“You may come down, ma’am.”
She braced herself again as she walked down the steps and back to the defense table.
* * *
After a recess, the bailiff signaled that the judge was ready to give a sentence. Judge Adams burst into the courtroom and slammed the door behind him. Family and friends filled the room. Rusty’s brother and sister-in-law were there, as were her parents. Andrea’s parents and a number of friends sat on the other side of the courtroom.
“Hi, good morning again, you may be seated,” the judge said. “As I indicated, the court will not tolerate any outbursts one way or the other. If you do not feel as if you can control your emotions, you may want to step outside. This is zero tolerance. I’ll give you a moment to remove yourselves, if you wish. You can stay if you wish, but you don’t have to.”
After reviewing papers in front of him, the judge said, “Mrs. Sneiderman, would you stand, please, with your lawyers.” She and three lawyers stood. “Mrs. Sneiderman, a jury has returned verdicts … and as a result of the jury verdicts, I have a responsibility to impose a sentence . I’ve listened to all the lawyers and the parties and the witnesses throughout the day and also reviewed the law as it exists in Georgia, and I will impose the following sentence at this time.”
He paused.
“As to count one,” he said, “I will sentence you to five years. As to count two, five years. As to count three, five years. As to count six, five years. As to count eight, five years.”
It kept going. Five years for each guilty count. But at the end he said, “I will give you credit for the time you have been in custody and also the time you have served under house arrest.” He also did not run the terms back-to-back. “This will be five years to serve on each count, I will render them concurrently. I’m not going to run them consecutively. I’m going to run them concurrently.”
He looked at Andrea. “Any questions, ma’am?” Andrea, standing stone-faced, had none. “At this point in time, I will have you taken into custody.”
Clegg tried to speak, but the judge interrupted him. “Take her into custody. Step out of the way, lawyers, do not obstruct. This woman will be taken into custody.” She was handcuffed behind her back and led out of the courtroom past the pool camera.
“Anything else?” the judge asked. “All right, the court is in recess!” Judge Adams banged the gavel and strode to his door. He was a step outside his courtroom with his back to everybody before the bailiff could finish shouting, “All rise.”
CHAPTER 25
The Lee Arrendale State Prison greets visitors with a cheery colonial-style sign on a post that would seem more appropriate for a southern diner than an institution with a history of violence and controversy. Located in the northeastern corner of Georgia, about eighty miles from Atlanta, the prison sits near the one-square-mile town of Alto, population twelve hundred, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. “Warm hospitality is offered to visitors who venture to this beautiful section of the state,” says the official website for Habersham County, which touts the region’s “fine dining, quaint shops, outdoor recreation and fine arts.” Cool and wooded, it’s the kind of place to which busy Atlanta residents would escape on muggy weekends in the city.
Built in 1926, originally as a hospital for tuberculosis patients, it was converted in the 1950s to a prison for men ages eighteen to twenty-five, including children sentenced as adults. A population of the state’s most violent criminals, combined with chronic understaffing, proved incendiary. The Law Office of the Southern Center for Human Rights called Arrendale a “violent and troubled institution” for the young inmates, including an eighteen-year-old man who was raped and strangled to death in 2004 not long after he had written to his grandmother about his fears of prison. “Rapes, stabbings, chokings, and beatings with locks, broomsticks, trash cans and other objects left many of these young people with severe head injuries, lacerations, bruises, broken teeth and other physical injuries as well as severe psychological trauma,” the center reports.
Things changed beginning in 2005 when the state converted Arrendale to a women’s institution. The first batch of 350 female inmates arrived in 2006 from crowded jails around Georgia, and tensions eased. The prison earned marks for creating the state’s first all-woman fire department, made up of inmates, serving the surrounding towns. The inmates now were known more for their high-profile crimes than any troubles in prison. The “antifreeze killer” Julia Lynn Turner, who murdered her police officer husband and later her fireman boyfriend by spiking their food with antifreeze, was among the first to arrive (she later died in another jail in 2010). The Grammy-nominated rapper called Da Brat—real name Shawntae Harris—landed in Arrendale on an aggravated-assault guilty plea for smashing a rum bottle over the head of a hostess at Atlanta’s Studio 72 nightclub on Halloween night in 2007.
DeKalb County district attorney Robert James had requested a twenty-year sentence for Andrea, but after her five-year sentence expressed satisfaction in the term. “Mrs. Sneiderman is on her way to jail as I believed she should be in the first place,” he said. “Two families have been torn apart. This is a very sad situation,” he continued. “In America you cannot lie to police and you cannot lie to a jury. It’s difficult for me to feel sympathy when someone asks for mercy but they’re not willing to admit fault.”
Andrea arrived in late 2013. Her time behind a fence and razor wire in a dormitory-style building promised to be short. With credit for her year of home confinement before trial and good behavior, she could earn parole as early as spring 2014. But even that was too much time for Andrea, who petitioned for bail. “This is a fight Andrea Sneiderman is going to win,” said her new lawyer Doug Chalmers, brought in for the appeal. Her legal team would cite what it called legal mistakes made by Judge Adams, including allowing the testimony of Hemy’s friend Melanie White, which the defense said was objectionable hearsay. Andrea’s camp argued that she should be free while the appeal was being filed. She could help her attorneys on the criminal case, be with her children, currently in the care of her parents—and continue to do battle with her in-laws in court.
Rusty’s family was not happy that the murder charges had been thrown out and that Andrea would serve relatively little time. “Our family has determined that we have no choice but to continue to litigate the pending civil lawsuits against the defendant to the fullest extent possible under the law,” they said in a statement. One of the actions, a wrongful death case, alleged that Andrea “knew that her co-conspirator intended to kill Rusty Sneiderman” and that she “actively and knowingly participated in the murder and the planning of the murder.” Another action was over the more than two million dollars in Rusty’s life insurance money that had been paid out to Andrea. The state had frozen the funds during the criminal trial and now Rusty’s family wanted the money to remain out of her hands while they pressed a wrongful death lawsuit.
In fall 2013, Andrea appeared in prison garb in an Atlanta civil court to argue that the money was rightfully hers because she ultimately was never tried for murder. Incarceration only stiffened her resolve, and the legal wrangling remained rancorous as her attorneys took shots at the DA’s office for dismissing the murder counts at the eleventh hour. “Representatives of that office swore under oath that Andrea Sneiderman was guilty of murder,” said one of her lawyers, Mark Trigg, at one hearing in September 2013. He ad
ded, “When it came time to put up or shut up and prove the allegations before a jury, they shut up.” Esther Panitch, representing Rusty’s family, asserted that Andrea “does not appear to be suffering or in great need of those funds. She has literally sacrificed others to obtain Russell Sneiderman’s property and without intervention she’ll continue to act in furtherance of [her] ultimate goal, which is to keep as much money of his as possible and away from her children.” The session typified the emotionally charged tone between Andrea and her detractors after the trial. As Andrea sat at the counsel table, her mother wept in the audience. A fed-up Fulton County judge Doris Downs tried to bring some calm to the proceedings, warning both sides to “cool things down.” She cautioned, “As hotly contested as I’m sure this whole issue is for both of your clients, you all have got to bring the clear cool heads to the table, otherwise we can spend all of the money litigating.”
By year’s end, cooler heads did prevail. In December, both sides abruptly reached a settlement in the wrongful death case. With the litigants now agreeing to remain silent publicly, a number of questions remained, including the fate of the insurance money. Rusty’s family had sought to have the funds placed in a trust for the children; how much control over those funds Andrea would now have as part of the settlement was left unstated. The reason for the Sneiderman family’s retreat was never revealed. Everybody vowed to remain mum about the settlement. Certainly the interests of the children loomed, the bickering and attorney costs a detriment to their well-being and financial futures. But another factor likely came into play—the simple lack of evidence. It was the same problem that plagued prosecutors.
And it invited the same question. Was the evidence missing because Andrea ensured that it would never be found?
Judge Adams may have ended the criminal case with a sharp rap of his gavel but that didn’t quiet a nagging sense that business was left undone, that gaps were left unfilled, that months of investigation and litigation had still failed to resolve key questions. Among them: was Andrea a greedy and a manipulative conspirator to her husband’s murder? Was she the victim of overzealous prosecutors, inept cops, and spiteful in-laws? Or some other possibility? No court now apparently seemed destined to resolve those questions.
Crazy for You Page 28