Crime & Safety

Dunwoody Shooting: Hearings, Motions Won't be Sealed

Defense tries to suppress identification by man who claims to have sold handgun to Neuman

The judge in the murder case against Hemy Zvi Neuman, the man accused of gunning down a Dunwoody father outside of a pre-school, has denied a request from Neuman’s defense team to seal several pre-trial motions and hearings in the case.

The defense’s motion to seal was challenged by both the Atlanta Journal Constitution and WSB-TV.

Neuman is accused of shooting Russell ‘Rusty’ Sneiderman outside of a daycare on Nov. 18, just seconds after Sneiderman had dropped his two-year-old son off for school.

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Tuesday several motions that had previously been sealed were opened by Judge Gregory Adams’ order.

Among the files were 20 motions filed by the defense, regarding statements, evidence and other requests.

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According to one of the motions, the state has a witness who says he sold a handgun to Neuman prior to the shooting.

The motion says that state witness Jan DeSilva was interviewed by police on Feb. 22 and identified a Neuman among several suspect photographs, saying he'd sold a handgun to Neuman prior to Nov. 18.

The defense argues that the procedures used in DeSilva identifying Neuman through the photograph were “unduly suggestive” and “designed to focus upon this defendant.” Neuman’s attorneys said the evidence is therefore tainted and should be suppressed.

While no gun has been identified as a murder weapon, the state, in its index of evidence, has a s, purchased in April 2010 as well as a sign-in sheet at a Woodstock shooting range from Nov. 1.

Also included in the pre-trial motions were a motion to suppress statements by Neuman as well as motions to suppress evidence filed by the state, focusing on 11 different search warrants performed by police.

Included in that list were warrants to search:

• the office space assigned to Neuman

• an apartment on the 100 block of East Andrews Drive in Buckhead and a 2009 Honda Odyssey.

• four computers – two Dell Inspirons, a Toshiba laptop and HP laptop

• Neuman’s East Cobb home

• a laptop bag found in Neuman’s office

• Neuman’s latent full right and left hand prints

• Neuman’s iPhone and iPad

• email records from his Yahoo! and Gmail accounts

• Neuman’s cell site and tower and call detail records

The defense argued that the warrants were done without proper probable cause and/or provided stale information, and that police went further thant the scope of the warrant in their searches.

Neuman's case is scheduled to go to trial starting on Oct. 17.


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