http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1208/21/ijvm.01.htmlJANE VELEZ-MITCHELL
Father Speaks out about Missing Palmyra Woman
Aired August 21, 2012 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m so glad Augusta is opening its doors and changing perspectives.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Domino effect.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL starts right now.
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And now it`s the widow`s turn. She made a scene in court when her alleged lover was tried and convicted for gunning down her husband outside their son`s day care. But prosecutors say Andrea Sneiderman conspired with her former boss to get her husband out of the way and cash in on his $2 million life insurance policy. Will convicted killer Hemy Neuman take the stand to testify against his purported ex-lover? We`re taking your calls.
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ANDREA SNEIDERMAN, ON TRIAL FOR HUSBAND`S MURDER: There was no affair. Who kills someone else`s husband?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That dead man`s wife has just been locked up behind bars.
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 just told me something happened to Rusty. What are the chances he`s going to be answering his cell phone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hemy Neuman was as good a man as ever walked on the face of the earth until he met and became involved with Andrea Sneiderman.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Cops say the killer had been having a secret extramarital affair with Andrea.
SNEIDERMAN: It was unfathomable and unbelievable that it could be him. Someone that proposed to care about me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were there, you were there from the beginning. Am I wrong about you being there?
HEMY NEUMAN, CONVICTED OF MURDER: I did not pull the trigger on the gun that killed Rusty Sneiderman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, a courtroom battle erupts over whether this woman, the one you see right there, should be allowed back on the street. She is accused of murdering her own husband. And prosecutors say she has a history of intimidating witnesses and that she`ll do it again, the same way she did during her purported lover`s murder trial.
Andrea Sneiderman, charged with the unthinkable: orchestrating and conspiring and plotting to have her own husband, the father of her children, gunned down in front of a day care as her husband was dropping off their child. Unbelievable. Why? Cops say she was having an affair with her boss. Witnesses say they saw, well, the two of them bumping and grinding. She denied the affair. But she did cash in her husband`s $2 million life insurance policy right after he was gunned down. The judge said today she will get bail, but it will cost her. Listen to this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m going to set bond for Mrs. Sneiderman in the amount of $500,000. $250,000 will be in cash. The other $250,000 can be either cash or property. She can have no contact, either direct or indirect, with any potential witness in this particular case.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Even though she was granted bail, the judge was clearly concerned that she could be tampering with witnesses again. Do you think she should be let out of jail?
Give me a holler, 1-877-JVM-SAYS, that`s 1-877-586-7297.
Straight out to reporter Craig Lucy in Atlanta; Craig, you`re right outside the jail where Andrea might be leaving any minute now. Well, what have you heard? Will she be getting out? And if she does, what are the restrictions that are going to be on her?
CRAIG LUCY, REPORTER: Well, I can tell you I just spoke with a sheriff here in Dekalb County and he told me about five minutes ago she will not be getting out of jail here tonight because the judge in this case has not received the bonding paperwork. He needs to sign that. And after he does it will still be a very long bonding process.
The Dekalb County spokesman told us he doesn`t know once the judge has that paperwork how long it will take because it depends on a number of factors. How many inmates are lined up to get out of jail before Andrea Sneiderman? It also depends on the bonding company that she uses. And she also needs to be outfitted with a GPS ankle monitor. And depending on which company is in charge of that, that could take hours.
I`ve covered the Casey Anthony case and when we were waiting outside the Orange County jail, it did take them about five hours to outfit her with one of those GPS ankle monitoring bracelets. So tomorrow we know that if she does post bail, she will be walking out of the Dekalb County jail here.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: But wait a second, it`s a lot of money. How much exactly? And where is she going to get that money? Do you have any idea?
LUCY: Yes. As we just heard this is a $500,000 bond. And she has to put up $250,000 of that in cash. And we did a report just a couple of weeks ago that shows she does have more than that in her bank account. So she`s very capable of posting this $250,000 in cash.
And then the rest as you heard the judge say can be in property. Her parents are very well off. They have different properties. And we were there exclusively, got some video of her when she was at the lake house when federal authorities and local authorities went to her home and took her out in handcuffs.
And when they did that there was not much emotion that she showed. She just had one arm behind her back. She was in cuffs. But today we saw a variety of emotions. She was excited. She was definitely excited when she received that bond, this $500,000 bond from the judge because today we didn`t know whether or not the judge was going to grant her that because the prosecution all along has been saying that she is a flight risk.
And now more than ever she has an incentive to be a flight risk because she`s facing these very serious charges of murder and malice murder along with perjury.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely.
Now, another reason the cops didn`t want Andrea Sneiderman back on the street is because she has a history of intimidating witnesses. Remember, she`s going to be going on trial for murder. During the last trial, the trial of her purported lover, she was banned from the courthouse.
You might remember this, this bizarre hug Andrea gave one of the witnesses as she left the witness stand. After this embrace, well, it wasn`t so friendly. Andrea allegedly threatened the same witness -- a former friend of hers -- who testified against her. The lawyer for that witness testified today against her being released. Listen to this.
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JAY ABT, ATTORNEY FOR SHAYNA CITRON: Andrea was waving her finger. And, to me, as you know someone witnessing and I perceived it to be very threatening. "We`re no longer friends. Our friendship is over. I understand why you did what you had to do, but now you`re going to have to live with what I`m going to do."
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Basically that guy does not want Andrea Sneiderman out because he feels his client who testified against her, well, is nervous, Joey Jackson.
JOEY JACKSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Listen, it`s a big development though that she`s even given bail. Why? Most clients who are facing murder charges are on remand Jane, that means they`re not going anywhere pending the resolution of their case.
Now, I`ll tell you this. In the event she tries to intimidate a witness, approach a witness, walk outside of a different geographical area, or flee the jurisdiction, that judge is going to have her back inside in a heartbeat.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And ding, ding, ding, her ankle bracelet will go off, off, off.
JACKSON: Oh, yes.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: One thing that`s immediately noticeable, is how -- look at this, Andrea Sneiderman`s appearance has changed since she was last in court. Take a look at the difference when she testified. We`re going to show it to you in a second. Her hair was down, right? She looks kind of like she`s going to go to a rock concert or something. All right.
Now, take a look at her today in court. She`s got her hair behind her -- tied behind her back. We`re going to show you that in a second. Not him. No, we`re going to show you her with her hair tied behind her. She looked very different. That`s her mug shot. But we`re going to actually show you her today in court.
And you know what it reminds me, as we`re getting ready, it reminds me of the Casey Anthony case. And really, Levi Page, remember Casey Anthony went through a whole complete transformation. There is Andrea Sneiderman today with the hair back in a bun and looking very prim and proper. What do you make of it, Levi Page? A makeover?
LEVI PAGE, CRIME BLOGGER: Well, you know Jane, we did see it in the Casey Anthony case; Casey Anthony at bars bumping and grinding with the other people in the bars while her daughter was missing. Then she showed up to court for us like a librarian. And that could be the same thing that we`re seeing here with Andrea Sneiderman.
And I think that the prosecution has a pretty strong case against her. I was surprised by the judge`s ruling because that woman that she had made a veiled threat to outside the courthouse according to that woman`s attorney who testified today, that woman had contradicted what Andrea had said. Andrea said that she did not know her husband was shot until she went to the Atlanta Medical Center to see his dead body. And that woman contradicted that and said I called you before you got there and told you your husband was shot. So if you listen to these witnesses, this attorney; this woman`s very conniving, very manipulative and I`m surprised by the judge`s ruling today.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It is a shocker. And obviously some defense team did a study somewhere that showed that defendants have a better chance if their hair is back in a bun. That`s the conclusion I`ve reached. We`ll have to see.
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