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Nancy Grace

Andrea Sneiderman Murder Charges May Be Dropped

Aired July 24, 2013 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Breaking news in the case of Andrea Sneiderman. With her trial set to begin...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not pull the trigger on the gun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twisted love triangle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) being stupid. Who would think that this would be happening right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: State of Georgia is dropping murder charges against her. Again, breaking news here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s accused of sleeping with her former boss, but putting him up to the murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whose boss kills someone else`s husband?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) The only person I could think who did it is (INAUDIBLE)

SNEIDERMAN: (INAUDIBLE) no affair. There was no affair.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At one point, she kind of was dancing for him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You told Mr. Newman that`s it.

ANDREA SNEIDERMAN, CHARGED WITH MURDERING HUSBAND: I said you obviously don`t know your boundaries.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He pulled her back, groped her. They were groping each other, I know, because I kind of turned away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have any idea why the defendant would have these feelings toward you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Serious charges dropped against Andrea Sneiderman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who kills someone else`s husband?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us.

A husband gunned down in the parking lot of his own son`s day care in broad daylight, shockwaves go throughout the suburban Atlanta community when it is revealed the shooter is the boss of the victim`s own wife.

At the center of it all, allegations of a twisted love triangle. Was the wife and mother of two, the grieving widow, Andrea Sneiderman, actually the mastermind of a murder plot to kill her own husband? What do the texts, the e-mails, the phone records -- what do they actually show? We have just learned a new twist in this case could help Andrea Sneiderman walk on murder charges.

I want to go straight out to Atlanta right now, Ninette Sosa. She is a reporter for All News 106.7. This case began when a loving father took his little boy to day care. I want you to pick it up, Ninette, from right there because it was in the parking lot that that man you`re looking at right there, the loving father, Rusty Sneiderman -- his life ended.

NINETTE SOSA, ALL NEWS 106.7 (via telephone): Jean, this is something that Rusty Sneiderman did routinely, taking his son to pre-school. It was not out of routine. He loved his children. Everybody in his family called him the brightest light. This happened on November 18th of 2010.

He gets his son to school, he`s getting ready to leave, and then he is approached by a man and he is gunned down while taking -- trying to leave that parking lot, right there in the pre-school parking lot. He was shot four times.

At the time, the police actually called this, quote, "cold and calculated slaying." In addition to that, police had said at this time that this is not a random act of violence but appeared to be a professional hit. As the story unfolds, we then learned more. But he was a loving father, have not heard anything negative about Rusty Sneiderman.

CASAREZ: And we know, Ninette, that not only was Rusty Sneiderman shot four times, but one of those shots was a contact wound to his jaw. And then the facts started developing that, lo and behold, the gunman may have been the boss of Rusty Sneiderman`s wife, Andrea.

We want you to get to know the grieving widow in this case, Andrea Sneiderman. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From leaving work to arriving at the day care, I think you said you presumed or they indicated that something had happened to Rusty.

SNEIDERMAN: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many times did you call Rusty?

SNEIDERMAN: Call Rusty?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rusty.

SNEIDERMAN: Zero times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why didn`t you call Rusty?

SNEIDERMAN: Because they told me that something had happened to Rusty. What are the chances that he`s going to be answering his cell phone?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You told Tammy Parker (ph) that you knew who killed him.

SNEIDERMAN: Yes. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wouldn`t it be important to tell the police (INAUDIBLE)

SNEIDERMAN: And didn`t Tammy Parker tell you that she thought the whole idea was ludicrous?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t care what Tammy Parker said.

SNEIDERMAN: Oh, OK. Well, she`s a very trusted friend. And so when I explained to her and expressed my gut feeling about, that it might be him, and she tells me it`s kind of crazy, and mom`s telling me he might come kill you because he`s in Florida and we don`t know what`s going on, why don`t we wait until we get back to Atlanta to tell the police. Up to that day, the police and I didn`t exactly have the best working relationship.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you believe you know who killed Rusty, and you were going to wait to get back to Atlanta to tell them?

SNEIDERMAN: Yes. That`s correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So Dave Mack, syndicated radio host joining us tonight, Andrea Sneiderman -- not only was she an expert in IT -- and we`ll get into that a little later -- but she had started to work for General Electric right there in the Atlanta area. Her husband, Rusty Sneiderman, was beginning to found his own business. So he was working on that.

All of a sudden, Dave Mack, she and her boss, Hemy Neuman, who shot and killed her husband, we now know -- they started to travel together?

DAVE MACK, SYNDICATED RADIO TALK SHOW HOST (via telephone): Oh, yes. They started not just traveling together but traveling a lot. And they were getting very comfortable a lot of the time away from home, not just little weekend trips, you know, just down the road. We`re talking to Virginia, to Colorado, to South Carolina -- a lot of trips, a lot of trips.

CASAREZ: And the fact is, she was asked about that on the stand, and she denied almost everything. But there was one trip where somebody countered what she said. And it was all about dirty dancing, right, all about Greenville. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Describe what you saw.

CHRISTINE OLIVERA, NIGHTCLUB WAITRESS: Well, imagine a dance floor. They had the entire place to themselves. What stood out most was that he kept spinning her around to the salsa music. I know at one point, she kind of was dancing for him. He pulled her back, groped her. They were groping each other. I know because I kind of turned away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said each other. Was each party...

OLIVERA: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... doing the groping?

OLIVERA: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s what you`re describing?

OLIVERA: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So back to Ninette Sosa, coming to us from Atlanta. What are we hearing now? Because Andrea Sneiderman is now currently charged with the murder of her husband -- not that she pulled the trigger, but that she was a party to the crime, that she counseled, advised, talked about and encouraged Hemy Neuman to do it. And there are so many phone calls between the two of them around pivotal points.

Are prosecutors going to drop the murder charges, Ninette?

SOSA: That`s a wait and see. And if they were to drop those murder charges, that means she`s not going to spend time -- life in prison. That`s going to come down to, basically. she`s going to be charged with mostly perjury charges and false statements, and that pretty much serves five to ten years for each count.

And she has about 13 of those that she would still be -- that will still be left against her. But the three big ones, felony murder, malice murder, aggravated assault, those go away. And if it goes away, she`ll be free in a few years.

CASAREZ: Well, you know, let`s talk about that. Jill Polster is joining us. She is a former DeKalb County prosecutor. She knows the laws of Georgia better than anybody. She also knows the parties involved.

Here`s what I want to ask you. First of all, there are seven counts of perjury, and in Georgia, that is five to ten years per count. You`ve got false statements, which is one to five years. She could serve multiple years in prison if convicted of these counts, right?

JILL POLSTER, FMR. DEKALB COUNTY PROSECUTOR: Yes, Jean, that`s right. If the judge chose to stack those counts in a consecutive way, she`s facing decades in prison.

CASAREZ: All right. We are taking your calls. I want to go to Ben Levitan, joining us tonight, who is a telecommunications expert.

Ben, the question is, why? Why would they be dropping these charges on the eve of trial? Jury selection is set to begin on Monday. Jurors are going to come in. They`re going to have questionnaires to fill out.

If this is a party to a crime murder charge, meaning there was communication between the two of them, the text messages, the e-mails, all of that is critical. It is believed there were text messages that may have been deleted, allegedly, by Andrea Sneiderman.

Once you delete a text message, is that gone forever?

BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT (via telephone): No, the messages pretty much that are sent -- when you send a text message, what happens, it`s stored just for a short period of time over at the phone company until it`s picked up and then it`s deleted. The phone companies do not store text messages.

So law enforcement, there`s no way they can go to any phone companies and say, We want the contents of those phone calls. It is kept on your device. So you could store it on your device. But if you delete it and you continue to use your phone, there`s no way to recover that.

So you can get it on the sender`s phone and receiver`s phone. But this happened in 2010, so the likelihood that we could retrieve those messages is pretty much zero. Without that, all you have is records that there was communications between these people and there is evidence as to where they were when they did make that communication.

But since they worked together, that would be expected and it`s not really, you know, all that surprising or easy to -- it would be easy to explain.

CASAREZ: Dave, I`ve got two questions for you. Dave Mack joining us tonight, syndicated radio talk show host. First of all, how many days after Hemy Neuman shot Rusty Sneiderman was he arrested?

MACK: It was not that long. I don`t know the exact number of days between the time that he shot and the time that he was actually arrested, Jean.

CASAREZ: Well, it`s long enough to delete text messages, right?

MACK: Right.

CASAREZ: And another question I have -- after he shot Rusty Sneiderman, he went to where Andrea Sneiderman worked. And tell us that he gained guest access to her building to get her computer?

MACK: Right, so that they could get rid of all the evidence between the two of them. They knew what was going on. And even during Hemy Neuman`s trial, you know, when it came out that he was diagnosed as bipolar and delusional and everything else, he was in a state of mind where he knew to get rid of all that information that he possibly could between the two of them.

CASAREZ: And I want to go back to Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert. If, in fact, the purpose -- minutes after he shot Rusty Sneiderman, he goes to work, gets the computer of Andrea Sneiderman. If the purpose was to delete things in it, can`t they be retrieved on a hard drive?

LEVITAN: Well, generally, it would be very easy to retrieve anything from a hard drive. Anything that is deleted still exists there. You know, if you delete an e-mail, it just doesn`t appear to you on your screen, but it`s still there for quite a long time.

But these people were IT experts. So they probably had the intelligence or the knowledge necessary to go in and overwrite this computer in such a way that, forensically, it could not be recovered.

CASAREZ: So experts in this country could not retrieve it if they were one step ahead of IT experts, forensic IT experts?

LEVITAN: Exactly. And people who listen to this show already know that if something is deleted off a computer, it`s not really deleted. And you know, unfortunately, people know that there are computer programs out there which will very carefully clean your hard disk.

And we do this -- you know, this is advertised because we know when we throw away old computers, we don`t want to throw away personal information. So it`s become common knowledge that you should totally erase your hard disk, and that`s what they did, if they did that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNEIDERMAN: Have you noticed what`s happened to my life since Hemy murdered my husband?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Andrea Sneiderman a cold blooded-killer or simply a grieving widow?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A manipulator, a calculating, very, very bad woman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma`am, do you need a minute?

SNEIDERMAN: I`m fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Murder in a suburb.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A cold and calculated murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A devoted husband and father is shot dead.

SNEIDERMAN: It was to be our tenth -- tenth wedding anniversary!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did Andrea Sneiderman put a hit on her husband?

SNEIDERMAN: I don`t -- I don`t know if -- I don`t think I ever...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You took them down a rabbit hole.

SNEIDERMAN: Oh, the whole thing made no sense to me anyway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Here`s the question. Is Andrea Sneiderman getting away with murder? She has had murder charges as party to a crime in the gunning down of her husband for one year now. And on the eve of trial, when jurors will be coming into that courthouse in DeKalb county right outside of Atlanta, Georgia, to fill out questionnaires, will they find out that they will not be having and participating in a murder trial?

I want to go out to Marla Chicotsky, a defense attorney joining us tonight. Prosecutors must believe beyond a reasonable doubt when they bring charges that they can prove it before a jury. What has gone wrong here?

MARLA CHICOTSKY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Jean, I think that the prosecutors in this case have taken some cues from other cases that have been nationally broadcast, such as Trayvon Martin and Casey Anthony, where you see prosecutors overcharging, potentially. So in this case, maybe instead of going down different roads and theories, they want to just hone in on one where they believe they have direct evidence, and not just circumstantial evidence, that she actually committed a crime.

They know that she perjured herself. They have multiple statements where she`s saying one thing. They have, as you were talking, digital fingerprints of her deleting text messages, deleting potential e-mails. So I think the state here believes, You know what? We definitely have proof of some sort of crime that can get her in prison for up to 40 years.

So instead of going for a conspiracy theory that they were having an affair, she potentially caused this murder or conspired for this murder, that they really want to go and go for the jugular and for that evidence that they do have, Jean.

CASAREZ: You know, Brian Claypool, defense attorney, joining us tonight out of Los Angeles, these charges came against Andrea Sneiderman after she was the star witness, the grieving widow for the prosecution in the trial of her lover, who was her boss.

I want you to watch this, and then I want to get your thoughts on why these charges might be dismissed. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNEIDERMAN: I couldn`t believe it. It wasn`t even possible. I thought I was being stupid. Who would think that this would be happening right now? Whose boss kills someone else`s husband? I don`t care, affair or no affair. There was no affair. Who kills someone else`s husband?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Instead of telling your husband, instead of telling HR, human resources...

SNEIDERMAN: Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... you told Mr. Neuman that`s it.

SNEIDERMAN: I said you`re draining me and I have responsibilities at home. You obviously don`t know your boundaries. We can`t continue this. We tried to be friends in addition to co-workers, and that obviously wasn`t working out. So that was it. In fact, I was even thinking about quitting my job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: All right, Brian, you heard it. She denied and denied and denied any type of an affair with her boss, Hemy Neuman, on that stand. And she swore to tell the truth. That forms the basis of the perjury charges, five to ten years per count.

Will they go to trial on perjury? Will it be a plea deal? Would she accept prison time?

BRIAN CLAYPOOL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, Jean, she said in there, Affair or no affair. I mean, I would argue that that is an insinuation, or impliedly, she`s admitting that there was an affair. Why would you say affair or no affair? That`s the first point I want to make. That`s almost like an admission there was an affair.

But let`s give her the benefit of the doubt. You have to have evidence, though, to refute, to prove that there was an actual affair. She`s saying no affair. In order to prove perjury, you got to have somebody come in and say they were absolutely having an affair.

Where do you get that evidence, Jean? Hemy Neuman was declared mentally ill. He can`t come in and talk about it. You`ve got a couple witnesses saying they groped each other. I don`t know if that`s enough to convict her on a perjury charge.

So if I was her lawyer, I`d try -- I would try to negotiate something and get a lesser plea and possibly not spend much time at all, because remember, the burden is on the prosecution here to put up evidence of the perjury.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The trigger man, Hemy Neuman -- he was Andrea`s boss.

SNEIDERMAN: He just killed my husband. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I had a feeling that it was him. But there`s no chance that I thought I was right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I told them that I thought it might be Hemy Neuman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. I always say let`s look at the facts. All right, let`s look at the facts. On November 10th, Hemy Neuman went to the home of Andrea Sneiderman and her husband. Why? He told his psychologist it was to kill Rusty Sneiderman.

Well, guess what? There are a lot of phone calls before he went to the house and after he went to the house. Who with? Andrea Sneiderman. And there were more calls all around the day of the actual shooting.

I want to go to Jill Polster, who is joining us, a former prosecutor with the DeKalb County prosecutor`s office. You`re right there. What do you think is that missing link? There`s a missing link that nobody knows about at this point as to why these charges might be dropped.

POLSTER: Well, I think if you start from the premise that prosecutors are duty-bound to not bring charges that aren`t supported by the evidence, and that that would have been a circumstantial case at best on the top three charges- I agree with some of the other attorneys who have talked about the more high-profile cases that have been overcharged, and you see juries sending back loud acquittals on overcharged cases. I think that they probably felt like their case was stronger on the remaining counts.

CASAREZ: So what you`re saying is they charged this case not knowing all the evidence, hoping there would be a text message or e-mail or something they could get through their IT specialist that would show that she was a party to the crime, that she encouraged and spoke and advised him of how to kill her husband?

POLSTER: I believe at the end of the trial of Hemy Neuman, they knew the evidence inside and out. I think that as they got closer to preparing for this trial, I imagine them sitting around and preparing for trial and looking at each other and saying, I don`t think we have enough. And I think maybe they hoped it would come together differently, and now they realize that their best chance on a conviction is on the remaining counts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not pull the trigger on the gun that shot Rusty Sneiderman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the defendant ever tell you ever that he was having hallucinations?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you seen Rusty`s face (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She allegedly was having an affair with Neuman. Prosecutors say that`s the motive for the crime.

SNEIDERMAN: I couldn`t believe it. It wasn`t even possible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The state of Georgia is dropping murder charges against her, again, breaking news here.

SNEIDERMAN: I think I`m a pretty nice person. I`m a very caring person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace tonight. Andrea Sneiderman is on house arrest at her home this evening, and she is facing murder charges. The question is, is it going to be her lucky day and those charges are going to be dropped as being a party to a crime in the murder of her husband?

You know, I want to go to Nanette Sosa, who is joining us from Atlanta right now. She`s with the reporter for All News 106.7. You know, this all started when the lover of Andrea Sneiderman -- of course, she does not admit that -- Hemy Neuman -- went to go buy a gun, and that was a couple of months after they went on a trip to England and Scotland. Do we know if Andrea Sneiderman knew about that trip to go buy a gun at a gun show?

NANETTE SOSA, ALL NEWS 106.7: Not that I`m aware. I did know about the trips to Scotland, et cetera, but as far as purchasing the gun and what she knew about that, I do not know.

CASAREZ: Dave Mack, what do you know? Because we`re hearing that there could have been some text messages between Andrea Sneiderman and Hemy Neuman, with her having knowledge of him buying a gun.

MACK: You know, I (inaudible), I know that you know much more about this case, Jean, than just about anybody. But I actually -- I saw some text messages back and forth that showed a lot of familiarity. But they were careful enough not to mention exact things. They were not necessarily talking in code, but they were leaving specific words out so you had to connect the dots. They were actually smart even in those personal text messages.

CASAREZ: And Dave, you have lived this case from the beginning also. Describe for us just some of the aspects of when Rusty Sneiderman was gunned down, one shot, a contact shot to his chin. How close must Hemy Neuman have been? Hemy Neuman, he had a costume on, didn`t he?

MACK: He did. Jean, on top of everything else, think about it. This was so personal for him because he was that close. He got that contact wound. He did put an odd (ph) mask on. You know, there were children less than 30 feet away. This just reeks of a real personal, intensely personal thing that was going on inside of Hemy Neuman.

CASAREZ: And we also know that Andrea Sneiderman called Hemy Neuman ten minutes after that shot was fired. That has never been admitted, but phone records don`t lie. Listen to Andrea Sneiderman in court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNEIDERMAN: It was unfathomable and unbelievable that it could be him. Someone that proposed to care about me, care about Rusty, care about my family, be a normal guy, be my boss. And he murdered my husband.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you recall telling the police that you don`t think the Hemy thing is anything, but that`s up to you guys to figure out?

SNEIDERMAN: That`s exactly probably sounds like something I would say. Seems kind of ridiculous, right? The theory that my boss would kill my husband. Just seemed kind of stupid at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Despite your friends telling you, tell the police about your boss?

SNEIDERMAN: Yes, which I did. My friends didn`t say I think Hemy Neuman killed your husband. Did they?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: But yet, ten minutes after that shot was fired, she is calling Hemy Neuman. What a coincidence. Caryn Stark, you are the psychologist. You see her on the stand right there. And what is your assessment of Andrea Sneiderman, the grieving widow in this case as she testified in her husband`s murder trial?

STARK: Hi, Jean. There`s nothing grieving about her. You`re talking about a narcissistic person, callous, calculating. Do you see any grieving there? I don`t. She`s very angry, too, and very strong and aggressive in saying that, you know, this doesn`t make any sense to her. And so she`s capable of anything, in my opinion. And certainly capable of acting as though this is beyond her imagination.

CASAREZ: And you know, there`s something else here that probably formed the basis of at least the malice murder charge. There was testimony that we now know has come to light that as she was driving to her husband who had been shot, she testified she didn`t know that he was shot, but she made several phone calls, am I not right, Ninette Sosa, telling people he had been shot before she`s supposed to know it?

SOSA: Exactly. That`s what defense attorney Doug Peters presented in court testimony. Also, so that morning at about 9:16, the incident happens, and then she 11 minutes later, Andrea is now calling Hemy Neuman. She says she explained it that she was calling her boss, that it was a natural reaction to call your boss to let them know that she had received word from the daycare that there was an accident with her husband. But what`s strange is that, that wasn`t just the one call to the boss. She called another six times. So that`s the question. Six times she called while on the way to the hospital. Here she is calling Hemy Neuman.

CASAREZ: Six times. You know, we`re taking your calls. Mary in Virginia, hi, Mary?

CALLER: Hi, Jean, how are you?

CASAREZ: I`m fine. Thank you for calling.

CALLER: I think she was the mastermind behind the murder. I think she manipulated Hemy, and everything that has been said before about the first person that she called was him instead of her husband, which would be the most logical person you would call. The fact that she has lied in court before and has four perjury charges, among other things. Her body language, just everything to me just speaks that she was behind it.

CASAREZ: Jill, I want to ask you. If charges are dropped, can they bring those charges again? Can charges be dismissed without prejudice?

JILL POLSTER, FORMER DEKALB COUNTY PROSECUTOR: Sort of. It depends on the mechanism they use to dismiss them. This case has had multiple indictments already. There`s some law about how many times charges can be indicted in Georgia. Three times. Which they have done on this case. So it would depend on the method of the dismissal.

CASAREZ: All right. Before we go, Brian Claypool, before we go to break I should say, Brian Claypool, if you were defending Andrea Sneiderman right now, what kind of deal would you try to get?

CLAYPOOL: Well, right now, I would fight vigorously to get the charges thrown out. We have to determine, though is the prosecution going to throw out the murder charges. And if they do, Jean, then if I`m a lawyer for Andrea Sneiderman, I would file a motion to have the remainder of the charges thrown out, because there`s not going to be any evidence. Hemy Neuman is not going to testify, and depending on what happens at this hearing on Friday, with Naomi White (ph), you might not even have her testimony. So I would ask to have the charges thrown out and take an aggressive approach against the prosecution.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Victim Rusty Sneiderman`s widow, Andrea, she allegedly was having an affair with Neuman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were groping each other.

SNEIDERMAN: We were holding each other`s hand. And that`s it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe she`s in on it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They kissed and fondled each other.

SNEIDERMAN: There was no affair.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe it`s (inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: You know, what we can`t forget in all of this, the life insurance policies. There were two life insurance policies that Rusty Sneiderman had. Andrea was the beneficiary of both. $2 million. She actually collected just weeks after her husband was gunned down. Jill Polster, former DeKalb County prosecutor, joining us. If she strikes a deal with the perjury charges, the false statement charges, will she be entitled to the $2 million?

POLSTER: Right now, I believe that money is being held subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding, which would be a separate proceeding, and the standard of proof is a lot lower. It`s not beyond a reasonable doubt, it`s by a preponderance. So I would have to say I`m not sure.

CASAREZ: You`re not sure. Very, very interesting. You know, Dave Mack, when we look at the motive for murder here, because prosecutors don`t have to prove it, but it`s very helpful when you have a motive that the wife wanted the husband dead. What motive for murder have we learned there is?

MACK: As you mentioned, you`ve got the affair with Hemy, the fact that she was teasing and manipulating him all along, or maybe she really did have feelings for him and thought, hey, I get rid of my husband, we`ve got $2 million in cash, $800,000 home in Dunwoody, we got the lake house. And Hemy makes a good living too so we`ll live happily ever after with a lot of money. I mean, it seems pretty basic now. Now that they`ve dropped the murder (inaudible) charges, I don`t know what`s going to happen.

CASAREZ: But you know, Caryn Stark, throughout the entire case, Hemy Neuman said she told me from the beginning she`s not going to leave her husband, she`s not going to leave her husband. She said I`m not going to leave my husband. Is there any motive for murder there, or is no, no, no really meaning yes, yes, yes?

STARK: Well, obviously, he interpreted it that way. It seems that way, Jean. If she`s having an affair with him, although she says maybe they held hands. Makes no sense. Then he`s a delusional guy. He might have taken it upon himself to decide this is the only way to get rid of him. Or else they plotted it together, because she doesn`t seem to take men to be anything more than objects. Easy to attain, easy to discard. That seems to be her attitude. Very, very cold.

CASAREZ: And let`s look at cold or grieving widow. Andrea Sneiderman in her own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you recall telling the police that you don`t think the Hemy thing is anything, but that`s up to you guys to figure out?

SNEIDERMAN: That`s exactly, probably sounds like something I would say. Seems kind of ridiculous, right, the theory that my boss would kill my husband. Just seemed kind of stupid at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Despite your friends telling you, tell the police about your boss?

SNEIDERMAN: Yes. Which I did. My friends didn`t say I think Hemy Neuman killed your husband. Did they?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How often did your bosses send you e-mails like depicted in 4869 with attached flowers?

SNEIDERMAN: Never. But I`ve never been stalked by anyone either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was Mr. Neuman stalking you at this time?

SNEIDERMAN: I didn`t realize it at the time, but evidently that`s what was happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The stalker that you now testified about, you picked him up at the airport?

SNEIDERMAN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. You flew home with him?

SNEIDERMAN: That`s correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You changed seats to sit next to him?

SNEIDERMAN: That`s how we always traveled.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You took the limo to your house with him?

SNEIDERMAN: That`s right. And I drove him home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then you drove him home?

SNEIDERMAN: That`s right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Stalked? The evidence shows that she requested adjoining hotel rooms in multiple hotels on the trips they took. Ben, you are a telecommunications expert. When you look at all the phone calls surrounding these significant events between Andrea and Hemy Neuman, when you look at he -- minutes after shooting went to go get Andrea Sneiderman`s computer, text messages that are missing, where is the truth, what is the truth to you as a specialist in this area?

LEVITAN: I mean, it`s very clear-cut when you start looking at not only the phone calls that occurred, but the patterns. The actual patterns of the calls and the location of these people, it tells a story. It tells a story that these people were communicating and were very close. And what you got to look at is, when you`re on a business trip and you`re not -- I go on business trips all the time with other people. You`re constantly calling each other on the trip to find out, are you in a meeting, where are you? These people, if we look at the records, if they`re not calling each other, then obviously they are together the whole time. So the phone records will tell a lot of interesting stories about what actually occurred.

CASAREZ: So Marla Chicotsky, is the moral of the story here, delete everything you can? Learn how to override the forensic investigators so the evidence isn`t there? Plan ahead, do what you have to do? And then you can get away with murder?

CHICOTSKY: Well, in this day and age, there`s so many technological advances, that people are realizing that there are digital fingerprints that are left by your actions. I think that it definitely looks suspect when people go out of their way, Jean, to delete messages, to delete e- mails. But that does not mean that they`re conspirators or they actually committed murder.

So I think in this case, what is helpful for the defense is that Mr. Neuman was declared delusional. So maybe he thought in his mind that there was an affair, or that he was in love with Andrea, but in this case, maybe she got scared because of his delusions and thought, well, him and I talk all the time, he and I e-mail all the time, he and I text all the time because he`s my boss. And that may make me a suspect, because of our multiple, numerous and occasional communications. So I think she might have done something that could have been damaging or she might have done something out of a place of fear. But that doesn`t mean that she`s a conspirator for murder.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace. Andrea Sneiderman tonight is facing murder charges, as being a party to a crime of her husband`s malice murder and felony murder; the underlying felony being aggravated assault. Will these charges be dismissed? Will she, in the minds of some, be getting away with murder?

Jill, you were a former prosecutor in that office. How do you think it will happen if the charges are dismissed? Will it be a press release from the public information officer based on a filing in the courthouse? Will it be announced Friday at a hearing, because a hearing is going forward on Friday with the trial.

POLSTER: They are under a gag order. I would think this would have to happen in open court on Friday, because of that gag order. I guess they could dismiss the charges and issue a press release, but I don`t know how that would play with the gag order that`s in place.

CASAREZ: What are people saying around your community? Because you live right there. You talk to people. Are people up in arms about this? Are people shocked about this?

POLSTER: I think people were surprised yesterday when they started hearing that the rumors that these top three charges, the more serious charges, were going away. I think universally, Andrea Sneiderman is so super unlikable, and that`s really what is resonating through the community.

CASAREZ: Could it be at all, Jill, the fact that forensic IT specialists in this country have been trying to find deleted e-mails and they just haven`t found what the prosecution believed they had in good faith when they filed those charges?

POLSTER: Exactly. I know they wish they had it. And I would imagine that the leads they ran down did not pan out, and they are going to go with the stronger charges, which is a smart, smart move.

CASAREZ: Nanette Sosa there in Atlanta, what are you hearing?

SOSA: Same thing, that it was a smart thing to do to bring down the charges, and then if they can get convictions on the perjury and the false statements, that that would be at least some type of a win, in their eyes, versus her completely walking.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: We remember American hero, Army Specialist Pedro Maldonado, 20 years old from Houston, Texas. He was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon. He leaves behind his parents, Pedro and Maria, and three siblings, including a twin sister. Pedro Maldonado, a true American hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNEIDERMAN: Kind of ridiculous, right, the theory that my boss would kill my husband. It just seemed kind of stupid at the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: We were able to get a transcript from a conversation that Andrea Sneiderman had in jail. You`ve got to hear this. All right? It says, quote, and it`s about somebody playing her in a movie. "I was thinking, if Sandra Bullock wasn`t so old, she`d be a good choice. I watched "Miss Congeniality" movie, like the second one or something, and I thought that she kind of has my personality. So you know, that would be a good choice, but I think she might be getting a little too old." That is a quote from a transcript of Andrea Sneiderman in jail talking to a friend of hers.

Jill Polster, former prosecutor, right in that office that is prosecuting this case. Prosecutors changed, the prosecutors that were to prosecute this, that prosecuted Hemy Neuman, have now gone to another county outside of Atlanta? Why?

POLSTER: They had an opportunity to go to another office with a newly elected district attorney and to help him during his transition. I think the replacement that will be sitting with the elected district attorney in DeKalb for this trial is highly competent. She comes from Fulton County, major case, and has tried some of the biggest cases in Atlanta.

CASAREZ: Do you think though that was a turning point in this case, new prosecutors, new philosophies?

POLSTER: Of course every time you get a fresh set of eyes on the case, it may look differently to the new people coming in.

CASAREZ: All right. Well, Rusty Sneiderman, may he rest in peace. And Caryn Stark, psychologist, before we go, the family of Rusty Sneiderman, they must be very affected by all of this. Any words to them?

STARK: Oh, my heart goes out to them. Really, Jean. I`m still kind of reeling from Sandra Bullock and she`s going to be playing her. But these kids, the family, I am so sorry. It`s going to be a hard time for them.

CASAREZ: It`s going to be a very hard time. Thank you to all of our guests, and tonight our thoughts and our prayers go out to the family and friends of Talia Castellano. She passed away after a long battle with cancer. The 13-year-old was a Youtube star and a "Cover Girl" spokesperson. She touched millions of people. We remember tonight Talia Castellano. "Dr. Drew" is coming up next.

END