Since this was the prosecution’s portion of the case, Robert Rubin had had no idea who the state would call first to the stand. He had to come prepared to question any number of witnesses. For Andrea, the initial plan called for proceeding cautiously. To press her would risk alienating the jury. But her first day on the stand clearly left a bad impression. On day two of the trial, Rubin would become more aggressive, pressing her on why she didn’t distance herself more from Hemy.
“I can’t control what he said to me. I can only control what I said to him,” she said. “I was doing the best I could to keep my job and keep everything together.”
She was grilled on why, when she would describe Hemy at various times as a “stalker” and a “predator,” she still traveled with him to the United Kingdom.
“Planning to go to a club, planning to go to a theater, going to a castle, going to a show—is that your definition of shying away from him?” asked Rubin.
“We all have different definitions. Like I said, going to London without seeing a show seems like a shame to me.”
“Is that your definition of shying away from him?”
“It is.”
Rubin rolled out more emails in which she’d alternately talk about betrayal and romance. Andrea acknowledged that at times she should have watched her own behavior, as when she went what she called “partner dancing” at the Pulse nightclub in Greenville.
“I realized the next morning it was not a good idea, that he did not know boundaries, that he was never going to let this go,” she said.
The cross-examination ended with Rubin asking her, “You received the proceeds from an insurance policy?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“For approximately two million dollars?”
“Correct.”
* * *
The pressure on Andrea continued with the prosecution’s questions on redirect examination. Andrea’s answers were laced with apparent anger and disgust.
“Why were you protecting the defendant?” Don Geary asked her.
“I was not!”
“Why didn’t you mention his name?”
“Have you seen what has happened to my life?” she lashed out.
“Have you seen what’s happened to Rusty’s?” the prosecutor responded.
“Have you noticed what’s happened to my life since Hemy was murdered—” She corrected herself. “—since Hemy murdered my husband?”
* * *
The prosecution left it there, with Andrea getting her murdered husband confused with the killer. For more than a day, the prosecution and defense had gone after her as if she were on trial instead of Hemy, each trying to score points for their own purposes. Many would ask why she testified at all, though in reality she was in a difficult position. A refusal to testify could have brought the spectacle of her taking the Fifth in open court, something she clearly felt was unnecessary. Andrea took the position she didn’t need to worry about self-incrimination since she had done nothing wrong. “Mrs. Sneiderman knew she was going to get beaten up on the witness stand,” her attorney Seth Kirschenbaum told reporters. “She has always cooperated in this case, and she wanted to help the prosecution even if it meant being subjected to withering attack.”
The final blow came when the judge told Andrea that she remained under subpoena and would not be allowed to watch other witnesses.
“I’m sorry,” Andrea said, “I have to stay out of the courtroom?”
“At this point in time you’re going to remain under subpoena and, yes, you’re going to remain outside of the courtroom.”
“I have to remain outside the courtroom for the remainder of the trial?” she asked in disbelief.
“I’m going to say this as clear as I can. You’re going to come off that witness stand and you’re going to remain outside.”
Andrea went into the hall.
* * *
During a break in later testimony, it was the prosecution that asked the judge to let Andrea return to the courtroom. They argued she had a statutory right to be there anytime Hemy was. Robert Rubin objected on the grounds she could talk to other witnesses, some of whom were close to her, and potentially “contaminate” their testimony. But the judge allowed Andrea to return and the trial continued, with Andrea watching from the audience section as the prosecution tried to make the case that Andrea had a liaison with Hemy in Longmont, Colorado, then lied about it to police.
Brady Blackburn, the desk clerk at the Hampton Inn in Longmont, recounted how insistent Hemy was about leaving flowers and chocolates in Andrea’s room, as did two other clerks, Linda Powers and Ruth Ingraham. Lindsay Clayton, a supervisor at the hotel, testified about how Andrea requested a room change from two beds to one.
More witnesses talked about the second Greenville trip that Andrea and Hemy took when, a hotel representative testified, they had an adjoining room, followed by Pulse nightclub bartender Christine Olivera, who painted the most vivid picture yet of what both the prosecution and the defense were contending was an affair. Olivera recalled how Andrea and Hemy had become so steamy on the dance floor groping each other that she looked away.
“You said ‘each other’: Was each party doing the groping?” prosecutor Don Geary asked.
The judge interjected: “When you say groping, what are you talking about?”
“Groping,” the bartender said, “like handling each other, like, you know, let’s say, he had his hands on her rear end, she was hugging him. They looked like a couple, groping, like touching each other.”
Geary asked, “At any time did you see the parties kiss?”
“Yes, I did.”
“How many times did they kiss?”
“I would say about three times.”
Again the judge asked for clarification. “When you use the term kiss, what is that?”
“Kissing, like, kissing, like a pop kissing, kissing like they were kissing. Not like making out.”
“Was it lip-to-lip contact?” asked Geary.
“Yes, it was.”
“Not on the cheek.”
“No.”
“How long did the kisses last?”
“While they were dancing, seconds. They were having their own moment. I didn’t want to interrupt them, but they were kissing and they were being affectionate toward one another.”
During cross-examination Doug Peters asked: “Miss Olivera, you described for us about the twirling and the dancing and the handling of one another, and I believe you indicated during that it wasn’t just their hands making contact with each other’s bodies, but there were times when they actually—their bodies actually rubbed together?”
“That’s correct.”
“And I think you’ve explained to me that there was some sort of grinding their hips together?”
“Grinding and his hands on her rear end and she was embracing him as well. It’s kind of hard to describe. But they were very affectionate towards each other.”
Further advancing the theory of an affair, Hemy’s Realtor friend Melanie White recounted her conversations with Hemy about his marital woes and his affections toward Andrea, leading up to their trip to London, the timing of which stunned Melanie because it fell on Yom Kippur.
“What was his personality like, his demeanor like?” asked District Attorney Robert James.
“Same old Hemy.”
“Same old Hemy? Had he spoken with you about any delusions that he had been having?”
“No.”
“Did he seem depressed?”
“No.”
“Same old Hemy?”
“Yes.”
Except that this Hemy had become “infatuated” with Andrea. They had adjoining rooms, he told Melanie, and one night he went into hers.
“He said they laid on the bed and cuddled and did just about everything but have intercourse.”
“Did he use those words?”
“No, those weren’t his words.”
“What words did he use?”
“That they kissed and they fondled each other and then she got up and went into the bathroom.”
“Is that what he said?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you what she actually did in the bathroom?”
‘Yes, he told me that she went into the bathroom to ‘finish herself off.’”
“Finish herself off?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask him what he meant by that?”
Melanie said: “I didn’t have to.”
“Well, why didn’t you have to?”
“Because I assumed that that meant that she was going into the bathroom to masturbate.”
In the courtroom, Andrea looked down.
According to Melanie, Hemy confided that during the second trip to Greenville the affection on the Pulse dance floor was part of a romantic night with a walk by a lake and a fine dinner.
“Did he tell you what happened once they ended up in the same hotel room?” asked James.
“What he told me was that she gave in,” said White.
“She gave in? Is that what he said?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you what he meant by ‘she gave in’?”
“No.”
“What did you believe he meant?”
“I believe he meant that they had intercourse.”
Hemy’s other confidante, Orna Hanison, recounted Hemy saying he had a woman in his life—the unnamed Jewish woman with kids—and seemed to be suffering a midlife crisis. Another witness, Jan DaSilva, spoke of how Hemy talked about having to get rid of the gun DaSilva sold him because of a problem with a mistress.
Through it all Andrea shook her head and whispered to her mother, becoming, it appeared, increasingly agitated. It came to a head when one of her best friends, Shayna Citron, was called. Recounting conversations in the weeks leading up to the murder, Andrea had been enduring marriage trouble, according to Citron, with the pair arguing over household duties and Andrea’s travel.
“There was a time I was concerned for her marriage,” said Citron.
Citron also recalled the day of Rusty’s murder, when Andrea called her while Citron was in Arizona.
“She immediately at the same time 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,” testified Citron.
“Are you sure she said she was still on her way to the hospital?” asked Geary.
“Yes,” Citron replied.
“And she told you Rusty had been shot at that time?” he continued.
Citron nodded yes.
Under cross-examination by Doug Peters, Citron said that while Andrea appreciated the professional compliments from Hemy, she claimed their relationship never went farther.
“Did Andrea admit or deny an affair with her boss at that time after the murder,” asked Peters.
“Denied it,” said Citron.
“Based on all of the time that you’ve known Andrea, based on your observations of her, her mannerisms, when she told you no, did you believe it?”
“No,” said Citron, “but my heart really wanted to believe her.”
“But you didn’t believe her?”
Citron pursed her lips and shook her head.
Weeks later, when Andrea was in Florida, the women discussed the police sketch of the killer.
“And she expressed to you that in looking at the sketches, she kept seeing Hemy’s face in those sketches, correct?”
“Not the face, it was the eyes.”
When she finished her testimony, Shayna Citron walked off the stand and into the audience section of the courtroom. Andrea embraced her and kissed her. It was a long hug and the women walked out of the courtroom arm in arm.
It happened in front of the jury, the kind of demonstration that Hemy’s lawyers had feared when they asked the judge to bar Andrea from the courtroom, and it created a kerfuffle. The next day, Adams took the unusual step of putting testimony on hold so he could huddle with lawyers for both sides and with Andrea’s attorney.
“Yesterday,” the judge then announced in open court, “after one of the witnesses left the witness stand, the court observed interaction by Ms. Sneiderman and that witness. It appeared to be a hugging or some type of embrace. The court has to respond to that and give general instruction that no one is to interact with witnesses when they leave the witness stand in the presence of the jury or even outside of the presence of the jury in that manner.”
Prosecutor Don Geary said Andrea’s behavior had actually been much worse. During the testimony of other witnesses, Andrea kept up a running commentary in her seat. She said, “That’s not true,” and “That’s a lie,” and “You weren’t there,” possibly loud enough for the jury to hear, according to Geary.
“I almost turned and snapped and told her to shut up,” said Geary. “But that wouldn’t have been proper as well.”
During the embrace with Citron, Geary said, a DA investigator tried to stop Andrea, but she pushed him out of the way. The hug, Geary contended, was “for show,” because afterward Andrea confronted Citron in the hall, saying that she didn’t believe her and that they weren’t friends anymore. Citron would quote Andrea as also telling her that in light of the testimony, “I will do what I need to do.” Citron called the experience “surreal” and didn’t know if Andrea had been making a threat.
When Andrea returned to the courtroom, said Geary, “We told her: Do not go in our witness room. We got a look that I could describe but I won’t.”
He said that several other witnesses, including her co-workers at GE, asked the DA to keep her away from them. “She’s not following our instructions,” Geary said. “From what I’ve seen yesterday, she’s not following the court’s instructions. Everybody here has way too much into this to have her, on her own agenda, cause a mistrial. The state’s purpose is to convict the man that murdered Rusty Sneiderman. I wish she could be here. I no longer have the opinion that she can be and make sure our trial is protected. We are moving to have her removed from the courtroom. Actually, we’re moving to have her removed from the courthouse.”
Hemy’s attorney Robert Rubin reminded everybody that the defense had already asked for her to be booted from the courtroom, and said the prosecutor now “has certainly provided the court with sufficient reason … We would join in the court’s motion.”
The judge agreed. “I am going to direct that Ms. Sneiderman be removed from this courtroom, not have any direct or indirect contact with any witness or potential witness,” he said. “I will say it as firmly as I can: Do not contact either directly or indirectly any witness or potential witness.”
The rest of the trial would proceed without Rusty’s wife in the courtroom.
Rusty’s family later said they weren’t surprised by any of it. “As a result of Andrea’s actions yesterday,” his brother Steven said in a statement, “today’s extraordinary action is yet another example of Andrea’s behavior that has been deeply troubling to our family for some time.”
Shayna Citron had a different take. “I became frightened after she was banned from the courthouse because I was thinking back to what she had said.” For years, they had been the closest of friends. Her children called her “Aunt Andrea.” Now she wasn’t so sure.
“When I learned that she was banned, I called my attorney,” Shayna said, “and I called my children’s school.”