Thomas W. Sneddon Jr.

Thomas W. Sneddon Jr. was the district attorney of Santa Barbara County, California. He has 22 years of experience as a D.A, and 35 years of experience in prosecution. He is best known for prosecuting and ultimately losing the Michael Jackson trial in 2005.

Biographical Information

Thomas Sneddon served as District Attorney of Santa Barbara County from 1983 up until 2007. Prior to his election as District Attorney, he had served in the District Attorney's office as Supervisor of Criminal Operations. He began his career in the office in 1969 as a Deputy District Attorney after a brief tenure in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. He served in the United States Army from 1967 to 1969. His education background includes a B.A. in history from the University of Notre Dame and a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Prosecution of Michael Jackson

He is most notable for twice investigating Michael Jackson on child sexual abuse allegations in 1993 and 2003. The first criminal investigation was closed with no charges, police cited lack of evidence. Jackson settled the civil suit out of court. The second set of allegations against Jackson resulted in a long trial, which ended in Jackson being acquitted on June 13, 2005. According to Jackson, his supporters, several media sources and several former prosecutors, Sneddon had, or at least appeared to have a vendetta or personal dislike for Jackson. Sneddon was criticized for referring to Jackson as "Wacko Jacko", and also for his "We got him" remark after Jackson's arrest despite having gathered limited evidence against Jackson. Sneddon strongly denied having motives other than simply doing his duty as a prosecutor. During the press conference following the singer's acquittal, he was asked to comment on a perceived grudge against Jackson. In response to the case itself, Sneddon has no regrets: "We did the right thing for the right reasons." Sneddon is rumored to have inspired the song "D.S." on Michael Jackson's "HIStory" album. The song contains the lyrics "Dom Sheldon is a cold man", which sounds much like "Tom Sneddon is a cold man", at one point he even sings 'Thomas Sneddon' (although it is written in the "HIStory" booklet as "Dom S. Sheldon") and goes on to describe "Dom" as an antisocial, white supremacist who wanted to "get my ass, dead or alive".

During the initial stages of the trial a website, "sneddonexposed.com" [cite web | url=http://web.archive.org/web/20040519162534/http://www.sneddonexposed.com/ | title=Archived SneddonExposed.com] , was launched. Sneddon reportedly protested against the website and it disappeared several months later.

Sneddon's staff nicknamed their boss "Snuffy."

References

External links

* [http://www.ndaa.org/ndaa/profile/tom_sneddon_jan_feb_2003.html National District Attorneys Association Profile]