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Andrea Sneiderman testifies during day one of the Dunwoody day care killing trial of Hemy Neuman. Photo by Vino Wong vwong@ajc.com

The second week of the Hemy Neuman trial began on Feb. 27 with the victim’s widow banned from the court.

Andrea Sneiderman, wife of slain entrepreneur Russell Sneiderman, was banned from the trial and the courthouse on Feb. 24 by Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams after a prosecutor complained about her courtroom misconduct.

Don Geary, chief assistant district attorney, told the judge that Andrea Sneiderman had hugged and kissed a witness.

“One of my investigators attempted to stop her,” Geary said. Sneiderman “pushed him out of the way and embraced this witness. She kissed this witness.”

Sneiderman worked at GE Energy in Marietta for Neuman, who is on trial for the November 2010 killing outside Dunwoody Prep daycare center of Russell Sneiderman, 36, who was shot after he had dropped off his son.

Geary said Andrea Sneiderman was also making comments during testimony.

“Mrs. Sneiderman is actually talking during direct and cross [examination] and making statements [like] ‘that’s not true,’ ‘that’s a lie,’ [and] ‘you weren’t there,’” Geary said. “I’ve almost turned and snapped and told her to shut up.

“Everybody here has got way too much into this to have her on her own agenda cause a mistrial,” Geary said.

During the first week of the trial, witness after witness was questioned about some aspect of an alleged affair between Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman, before the testimony switched to exactly when Sneiderman knew how her husband was killed.

Donna Formato, assistant director of Dunwoody Prep, said she called Sneiderman after the killing and told her simply that there had been an accident.

“I was worried for her to drive to the school knowing that her husband had been shot,” Formato said. “I didn’t want her to have an accident or anything on the way.”

Sneiderman herself testified on Feb. 21 that she first learned after going to the hospital that her husband had been shot.

“I didn’t know what had happened to Rusty until I got to the emergency room,” Sneiderman said.

But Shayna Citron, a friend of Sneiderman’s for at least eight years, said Sneiderman called her the morning Russel Sneiderman was killed.

Sneiderman was “screaming to me that Rusty had been shot, and she didn’t know if he was dead or alive and she was on the way to the hospital,” Citron said.

Donald Sneiderman, Russell’s father, said Andrea called him at 9:30 that morning saying that “Rusty had been shot and …she was going to Dunwoody Prep to find out what had happened.”

Another witness said he actually saw Russell Sneiderman being shot.

Chris Lang, who was in the parking lot of Dunwoody Prep at the time of the killing, said, “I heard, initially…a loud pop, enough to startle me. I heard another bang, or pop.”

Lang told the court as he circled around the parking lot to exit, he saw “Hemy shooting Rusty.”

Neuman “had his right arm extended…down towards Rusty,” Lang said.

Terrence Gfroerer, a pediatrician who worked near Dunwoody Prep, testified that on the morning of the killing a staff member told him there had been a shooting in the parking lot.

Gfroerer said he went to the scene, rolled Sneiderman onto his back and checked for breathing.

“There was none,” Gfroerer said. Sneiderman did have “a weak pulse” and Gfroerer performed CPR for five minutes but was unable to revive him.

On Feb. 27, Steven Frank Dunton, a former deputy chief medical examiner for DeKalb County, told jurors that Sneiderman had five gunshot wounds—a point-blank shot to the jaw, one to the chest, two in the abdomen and a bullet grazed his forearm.