Thomas William Sneddon, the prosecutor in the 2005 Michael Jackson case—and the man who spent years pursuing him on what were widely described as baseless charges—died yesterday at age 73 from cancer at Santa Barbara Hospital.
Thomas (Tom) Sneddon was a well-known figure, not for his service—or even for his time in the Vietnam War—but because of more than a decade of high-profile legal pursuit of the most famous person on earth.
After the Vietnam War, Sneddon worked in the U.S. judicial system for four decades. Initially a prosecutor, in 1983 he was appointed as the 33rd district attorney for the judicial district of Santa Barbara County in the state of California, and remained in that role for five consecutive terms until his retirement in 2010.
Sneddon and Michael Jackson
Thomas Sneddon twice prosecuted Michael Jackson in 1993 and 1995–2003 on charges of child sexual abuse, spending millions of dollars of public money for that purpose.
In 1993, the child sexual abuse allegation became public after Michael Jackson refused to pay a bribe to Chandler, the father of a 13-year-old boy. Sneddon interrogated dozens of teenage boys but found no witnesses. He sent police officers to search Neverland, Michael’s home. The police were looking for evidence that could link the child sexual abuse allegations to Michael Jackson—such as nude images of children and related matters—but they found not even the slightest trace. The grand jury rejected Jackson’s case twice and did not allow the trial to proceed. However, Chandler—now with a changed accusation—who claimed his child had been harmed on the Neverland property, turned to the insurance company covering Michael. Despite Michael’s opposition, Chandler managed to obtain a multi-million-dollar settlement. This was widely reported in the media as a secret deal between Michael Jackson and the accuser to avoid going to court, and the King of Pop was, until his death, the target of intense suspicion. It is also worth noting that Evan Chandler—who was rumored to have set himself up with a comfortable, worry-free life using the millions he allegedly gained from accusing an innocent man—ended his life the same year Michael Jackson died, with a gunshot. It was said that he suffered from severe depression.
Child and family advocacy organizations kept Michael Jackson under covert surveillance for more than a decade after the first accusation, until the second charge against him resurfaced in 2003 again, this time with the support of prosecutor Sneddon. This time, the accuser was Janet Arvizo, a mother who, along with her children—one of whom had a cancer diagnosis—had been sheltering at Neverland for some time. In Michael’s shadow, she had treated her son and also enjoyed many services and facilities. In November 2003, Sneddon sent about 60 police officers to Neverland. It was said that Michael’s home was devastated by the crowd of police forces. They even tore up the furniture cover that had been decorated with signatures from many celebrities. The accuser’s mother claimed that her sick son had been abused by Michael and that he had tried to kidnap them. Her statements were so absurd that, as a result, the 2005 court case was compared to a circus. Ultimately, after months of futile proceedings and millions of dollars in costs—later funded by public taxes—Michael Jackson was found not guilty on 10 counts by the jury. The verdict was deeply embarrassing for the prosecution team, which had spent more than $3 million trying to accuse an innocent man. The prosecutor even sent a special team of investigators to the Philippines to question a couple who had once worked at Neverland.
After Michael’s death, a child advocacy organization revealed that after years of investigating and pursuing Michael Jackson, they had found no evidence against him. This time, it cleared Michael of all charges as well, but—unlike the news of his innocence in court—it did not receive widespread media coverage.
Michael, however, was never freed from the pain and sorrow caused by these allegations, and according to many of his friends—and in our belief—the 2005 trial never truly ended for him. Many of Michael Jackson’s friends and fans consider these allegations and the trial itself—the direct result of prosecutor Sneddon’s actions—the main factor behind the King of Pop’s death.
Tom Sneddon’s performance
Prosecutor Tom Sneddon was a powerful and influential man, but corrupt. Over the years of his control over the Santa Barbara judicial system, many instances of lawbreaking occurred under his watch. His colleagues and subordinates describe him as corrupt, disrespectful, a liar, fanatical, selfish, narcissistic, hypocritical, and racist.
Those who consider Sneddon a defender of children’s rights and a hunter of sexual abusers should take a closer look at the case of a 14-year-old girl who was a victim of sexual abuse—but who was met with indifference from the prosecutor, simply because the accused was one of his colleagues.
In 2002, David Bruce Dennison, an inspector with the Santa Barbara Police Department, was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He came home drunk and abused the girl who was their guest. He admitted that he had “accidentally” raped the girl and that he had mistaken her for his wife. But prosecutor Sneddon closed the case, stating that there was no evidence or documentation to prove the girl’s claim. The girl wrote an open letter and published it in the Santa Maria Times, saying she was shocked by the prosecutor’s foolish decision to grant the accused freedom. The girl’s father, while pointing to contradictions in the prosecutor’s conduct across the two Jackson and Dennison cases, said this issue made them furious.
This was only one of countless cases of prosecutorial corruption in which Sneddon had been at the helm of the “justice ship” in Santa Barbara for more than two decades. As it appears, defending children’s rights was never a priority for the Santa Barbara prosecutor, and he pursued other goals.
Racism
One source close to Sneddon revealed that Sneddon’s accusations against Michael Jackson stemmed from his racist tendencies. This source says Sneddon pursued Michael Jackson out of personal reasons and hatred.
The source also said that during Tom Sneddon’s tenure over the Santa Barbara judicial district, many of his subordinates—who were Spanish or of African descent—were subjected to his injustice. In the end, those people were forced to change jobs for their own peace of mind.
These cases confirm the large amount of information shared on the internet against prosecutor Sneddon. There were also many complaints about Sneddon regarding baseless accusations, improper conduct, conspiracy, abuse of power, and violations of the law—though these were, of course, neglected and ignored by the mass media.
The song “DS”
Michael Jackson himself, in a song titled “DS” dedicated to Tom Sneddon, says that Sneddon wanted to bring him down at any cost. In the song, he references the U.S. intelligence agency CIA and also the Federal Police, the FBI, saying that Sneddon has a mission from the CIA, that he crossed boundaries for his own benefit, and that he needs the public’s approval only to preserve his position and office. Michael links prosecutor Sneddon to the Ku Klux Klan—racist organizations in the U.S.—and says that Sneddon’s mother never taught him right from wrong. He portrays this prosecutor as a person lacking life and social standing, someone who has no heart or feelings.
Prosecutor Sneddon, regarding this song, said: “I didn’t give him the honor of hearing it, but I was told it ends with the sound of gunfire.”
Nothing to say, but…
On his website, Roger Friedman, while reflecting on the news of Sneddon’s death, wrote:
There’s nothing good I can say about Tom Sneddon. It’s not acceptable to speak ill of the dead. But this is what I know: Sneddon set up an enmity against Michael Jackson that lasted for years. He first made the mistake of the 1993 case, and then—without any evidence—dragged Jackson to the 2005 court and destroyed him. The sexual abuse case led by Sneddon was completely fabricated and, without a doubt, ultimately led to Jackson’s death.
I saw Sneddon in court during the winter and spring of 2005. He was as unprofessional and inexperienced as possible. It’s hard to believe that a character as foolish and ignorant as he was could win the approval of wealthy, upper-class voters in Santa Barbara. His case against Michael Jackson was ridiculous—and you could say it was based on racial prejudice. It was obvious that he wanted to drive Jackson out of Santa Ynez, Los Alamos. Don’t forget that while jury members were busy voting, Sneddon arranged a victory celebration at a local restaurant. He was convinced he had won. It was the most insulting thing he could do, and he was drowning in mistakes—mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.
From the start, Sneddon knew that the Arvizo family was crazy, but aside from that, there was more than enough evidence to prove their lying—especially when they claimed they had been kidnapped by Jackson and kept in captivity. If you had been there to see the list of expenses and bills that the Arvizo family had cooked up for Jackson during their “imprisonment,” Sneddon would have seen the same thing. (eMJey: Janet Arvizo, in the witness stand, stated under oath that she was kept in captivity by Michael Jackson. At the same time, she complained that Jackson hadn’t paid her for her “epilation” bills. Michael Jackson may have been the only person who sent his prisoner outside the world of Neverland to do epilation and buy luxury items.)
At the time, I wrote so much about Arvizo’s spending—shopping, restaurants, vacations, a mineral water pool—that any prosecutor with integrity would have doubted the truth of her statements. But Sneddon was after Michael Jackson. He had lost in 1993. He wasn’t happy with the song Jackson had sung for him. When he appeared in November 2003 with Diane Diamond, a low-ranking reporter from a worthless newspaper, for a major arrest and search operation at Neverland, he revealed his hand. He came for revenge.
In court, Sneddon made many mocking smiles. He truly thought he would send Michael Jackson to prison. He certainly insulted the pop star. But in the end, his case fell apart. Janet Arvizo, whose lying had been exposed to the Social Services Agency (a disgusting and unforgivable crime in the eyes of the public), told Tom Mesereau, Jackson’s lawyer, that Michael had tried to kidnap her and her family in a big balloon. She and her children told conflicting stories. No one could explain how Arvizo had done bikini epilation while Sneddon insisted that it had been against her will.
Two weeks after the trial ended, Jackson left Los Angeles. Mesereau had advised him to go. He said Sneddon wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t give in, and would make life hell for Jackson.
Sneddon’s intense eagerness to bring down Michael Jackson caused a great deal of damage. The absolute truth is that—of course, people don’t like this—Michael Jackson was innocent. These accusations should never have been made against him.
Below is an excerpt from a letter written by a fan to Sneddon:
You see, people can’t think of you without remembering Michael. You made sure that would happen. You devoted twelve years of your life to torturing a man who was not only innocent, but who never did you any wrong. You trampled the world in pursuit of people who would say they were harmed by him—not because you believed the truth of such a thing, but because you wanted it to be true and you wanted the public to believe it too. Why? That’s something I still don’t understand. But whatever your reasons were, the result was only this: an innocent man collapsed inward because of your lies, and his reputation was tarnished.
Source: eMJey.com /
showbiz۴۱۱ & CBS
Thomas William Sneddon, the prosecutor in the 2005 Michael Jackson case—and the man who spent years pursuing him on what were widely described as baseless charges—died yesterday at age 73 from cancer at Santa Barbara Hospital.
Thomas (Tom) Sneddon was a well-known figure, not for his service—or even for his time in the Vietnam War—but because of more than a decade of high-profile legal pursuit of the most famous person on earth.
After the Vietnam War, Sneddon worked in the U.S. judicial system for four decades. Initially a prosecutor, in 1983 he was appointed as the 33rd district attorney for the judicial district of Santa Barbara County in the state of California, and remained in that role for five consecutive terms until his retirement in 2010.Sneddon and Michael Jackson
Thomas Sneddon twice prosecuted Michael Jackson in 1993 and 1995–2003 on charges of child sexual abuse, spending millions of dollars of public money for that purpose.
In 1993, the child sexual abuse allegation became public after Michael Jackson refused to pay a bribe to Chandler, the father of a 13-year-old boy. Sneddon interrogated dozens of teenage boys but found no witnesses. He sent police officers to search Neverland, Michael’s home. The police were looking for evidence that could link the child sexual abuse allegations to Michael Jackson—such as nude images of children and related matters—but they found not even the slightest trace. The grand jury rejected Jackson’s case twice and did not allow the trial to proceed. However, Chandler—now with a changed accusation—who claimed his child had been harmed on the Neverland property, turned to the insurance company covering Michael. Despite Michael’s opposition, Chandler managed to obtain a multi-million-dollar settlement. This was widely reported in the media as a secret deal between Michael Jackson and the accuser to avoid going to court, and the King of Pop was, until his death, the target of intense suspicion. It is also worth noting that Evan Chandler—who was rumored to have set himself up with a comfortable, worry-free life using the millions he allegedly gained from accusing an innocent man—ended his life the same year Michael Jackson died, with a gunshot. It was said that he suffered from severe depression.
Child and family advocacy organizations kept Michael Jackson under covert surveillance for more than a decade after the first accusation, until the second charge against him resurfaced in 2003 again, this time with the support of prosecutor Sneddon. This time, the accuser was Janet Arvizo, a mother who, along with her children—one of whom had a cancer diagnosis—had been sheltering at Neverland for some time. In Michael’s shadow, she had treated her son and also enjoyed many services and facilities. In November 2003, Sneddon sent about 60 police officers to Neverland. It was said that Michael’s home was devastated by the crowd of police forces. They even tore up the furniture cover that had been decorated with signatures from many celebrities. The accuser’s mother claimed that her sick son had been abused by Michael and that he had tried to kidnap them. Her statements were so absurd that, as a result, the 2005 court case was compared to a circus. Ultimately, after months of futile proceedings and millions of dollars in costs—later funded by public taxes—Michael Jackson was found not guilty on 10 counts by the jury. The verdict was deeply embarrassing for the prosecution team, which had spent more than $3 million trying to accuse an innocent man. The prosecutor even sent a special team of investigators to the Philippines to question a couple who had once worked at Neverland.
After Michael’s death, a child advocacy organization revealed that after years of investigating and pursuing Michael Jackson, they had found no evidence against him. This time, it cleared Michael of all charges as well, but—unlike the news of his innocence in court—it did not receive widespread media coverage.
Michael, however, was never freed from the pain and sorrow caused by these allegations, and according to many of his friends—and in our belief—the 2005 trial never truly ended for him. Many of Michael Jackson’s friends and fans consider these allegations and the trial itself—the direct result of prosecutor Sneddon’s actions—the main factor behind the King of Pop’s death.
Tom Sneddon’s performance
Prosecutor Tom Sneddon was a powerful and influential man, but corrupt. Over the years of his control over the Santa Barbara judicial system, many instances of lawbreaking occurred under his watch. His colleagues and subordinates describe him as corrupt, disrespectful, a liar, fanatical, selfish, narcissistic, hypocritical, and racist.
Those who consider Sneddon a defender of children’s rights and a hunter of sexual abusers should take a closer look at the case of a 14-year-old girl who was a victim of sexual abuse—but who was met with indifference from the prosecutor, simply because the accused was one of his colleagues.
In 2002, David Bruce Dennison, an inspector with the Santa Barbara Police Department, was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He came home drunk and abused the girl who was their guest. He admitted that he had “accidentally” raped the girl and that he had mistaken her for his wife. But prosecutor Sneddon closed the case, stating that there was no evidence or documentation to prove the girl’s claim. The girl wrote an open letter and published it in the Santa Maria Times, saying she was shocked by the prosecutor’s foolish decision to grant the accused freedom. The girl’s father, while pointing to contradictions in the prosecutor’s conduct across the two Jackson and Dennison cases, said this issue made them furious.
This was only one of countless cases of prosecutorial corruption in which Sneddon had been at the helm of the “justice ship” in Santa Barbara for more than two decades. As it appears, defending children’s rights was never a priority for the Santa Barbara prosecutor, and he pursued other goals.
Racism
One source close to Sneddon revealed that Sneddon’s accusations against Michael Jackson stemmed from his racist tendencies. This source says Sneddon pursued Michael Jackson out of personal reasons and hatred.
The source also said that during Tom Sneddon’s tenure over the Santa Barbara judicial district, many of his subordinates—who were Spanish or of African descent—were subjected to his injustice. In the end, those people were forced to change jobs for their own peace of mind.
These cases confirm the large amount of information shared on the internet against prosecutor Sneddon. There were also many complaints about Sneddon regarding baseless accusations, improper conduct, conspiracy, abuse of power, and violations of the law—though these were, of course, neglected and ignored by the mass media.
The song “DS”
Michael Jackson himself, in a song titled “DS” dedicated to Tom Sneddon, says that Sneddon wanted to bring him down at any cost. In the song, he references the U.S. intelligence agency CIA and also the Federal Police, the FBI, saying that Sneddon has a mission from the CIA, that he crossed boundaries for his own benefit, and that he needs the public’s approval only to preserve his position and office. Michael links prosecutor Sneddon to the Ku Klux Klan—racist organizations in the U.S.—and says that Sneddon’s mother never taught him right from wrong. He portrays this prosecutor as a person lacking life and social standing, someone who has no heart or feelings.
Prosecutor Sneddon, regarding this song, said: “I didn’t give him the honor of hearing it, but I was told it ends with the sound of gunfire.”
Nothing to say, but…
On his website, Roger Friedman, while reflecting on the news of Sneddon’s death, wrote:
There’s nothing good I can say about Tom Sneddon. It’s not acceptable to speak ill of the dead. But this is what I know: Sneddon set up an enmity against Michael Jackson that lasted for years. He first made the mistake of the 1993 case, and then—without any evidence—dragged Jackson to the 2005 court and destroyed him. The sexual abuse case led by Sneddon was completely fabricated and, without a doubt, ultimately led to Jackson’s death.
I saw Sneddon in court during the winter and spring of 2005. He was as unprofessional and inexperienced as possible. It’s hard to believe that a character as foolish and ignorant as he was could win the approval of wealthy, upper-class voters in Santa Barbara. His case against Michael Jackson was ridiculous—and you could say it was based on racial prejudice. It was obvious that he wanted to drive Jackson out of Santa Ynez, Los Alamos. Don’t forget that while jury members were busy voting, Sneddon arranged a victory celebration at a local restaurant. He was convinced he had won. It was the most insulting thing he could do, and he was drowning in mistakes—mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.
From the start, Sneddon knew that the Arvizo family was crazy, but aside from that, there was more than enough evidence to prove their lying—especially when they claimed they had been kidnapped by Jackson and kept in captivity. If you had been there to see the list of expenses and bills that the Arvizo family had cooked up for Jackson during their “imprisonment,” Sneddon would have seen the same thing. (eMJey: Janet Arvizo, in the witness stand, stated under oath that she was kept in captivity by Michael Jackson. At the same time, she complained that Jackson hadn’t paid her for her “epilation” bills. Michael Jackson may have been the only person who sent his prisoner outside the world of Neverland to do epilation and buy luxury items.)
At the time, I wrote so much about Arvizo’s spending—shopping, restaurants, vacations, a mineral water pool—that any prosecutor with integrity would have doubted the truth of her statements. But Sneddon was after Michael Jackson. He had lost in 1993. He wasn’t happy with the song Jackson had sung for him. When he appeared in November 2003 with Diane Diamond, a low-ranking reporter from a worthless newspaper, for a major arrest and search operation at Neverland, he revealed his hand. He came for revenge.
In court, Sneddon made many mocking smiles. He truly thought he would send Michael Jackson to prison. He certainly insulted the pop star. But in the end, his case fell apart. Janet Arvizo, whose lying had been exposed to the Social Services Agency (a disgusting and unforgivable crime in the eyes of the public), told Tom Mesereau, Jackson’s lawyer, that Michael had tried to kidnap her and her family in a big balloon. She and her children told conflicting stories. No one could explain how Arvizo had done bikini epilation while Sneddon insisted that it had been against her will.
Two weeks after the trial ended, Jackson left Los Angeles. Mesereau had advised him to go. He said Sneddon wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t give in, and would make life hell for Jackson.
Sneddon’s intense eagerness to bring down Michael Jackson caused a great deal of damage. The absolute truth is that—of course, people don’t like this—Michael Jackson was innocent. These accusations should never have been made against him.
Below is an excerpt from a letter written by a fan to Sneddon:
You see, people can’t think of you without remembering Michael. You made sure that would happen. You devoted twelve years of your life to torturing a man who was not only innocent, but who never did you any wrong. You trampled the world in pursuit of people who would say they were harmed by him—not because you believed the truth of such a thing, but because you wanted it to be true and you wanted the public to believe it too. Why? That’s something I still don’t understand. But whatever your reasons were, the result was only this: an innocent man collapsed inward because of your lies, and his reputation was tarnished.
Source: eMJey.com / showbiz۴۱۱ & CBS