I agree with you; pedophilia is truly horrible. It is a truly heinous crime and should never be accepted. However, Michael Jackson was not one. To get some information on the case (other than what you have been reading online or told by the news), I recommend you watch the documentary "The untold story of Neverland" by Larry Nimmer. I would be happy to send it to you for free, with shipping done and paid for, if you are interested.

The court transcripts are also available online if you Google them. When looking a bit deeper into the case in question, and looking at the FACTS, with no pre-conceived notions, I think you will find that the media played you for a fool quite a bit regarding this.

I also recommend you read the books "Redemption: the truth behind the Michael Jackson child molestation allegations" by Geraldine Hughes, who was the legal secretary of the attorney representing the accuser, as well as "Michael Jackson Conspiracy" by Aphrodite Jones. These women were both personally present at and/or involved in the trial.

You're very welcome. :)

There was a time when I felt anger towards those that had disliked (or sometimes even hated) him while he was alive, only to "see the light" after his death. I've slowly realized, though, that although it is sad that Michael did not get to experience the massive outpour of love from the general public while he was still here...better late than never. If someone can look beyond the tabloids now and go: "hang on a minute, maybe I was wrong about this man", then that is all that matters.

This is a man that is no stranger to corruption, and his condescending "be a good boy" to Chris Tucker during his testimony hardly speaks of professionalism. It was also discovered that Tom Sneddon attempted to obtain fingerprints from the accuser on a false piece of evidence, in order to frame Jackson. That a D.A has to manipulate evidence speaks volumes not only of the amount of corruption, but also of just how ludicrous a case this was, and how truly little evidence there was of anything inappropriate ever taking place.

When he finally found a family with a story to use, he made sure, once the trial started, that there would be as little support for Jackson as possible; allegedly warning owners of hostels and hotels in Santa Barbara that he would put them out of business if they housed any of the many Michael Jackson supporters that were flying in from all over the world. So not only did many end up without accomodation in or near the commniuty; the people of Santa Barbara weren't exactly text book examples of hospitality; throwing rocks at them, gathering otuside court to mock them, or telling them to leave.

Everything was very thoroughly and very systematically planned, and it brings us back to human nature and the question "why". Why Tom Sneddon was so hellbent on making sure that Michael Jackson go under, I do not know.

Thank you everyone.

I don't think it's possible to fully grasp just how much things were twisted in the press for the three months it took for the trial to finish, or to fully understand what a circus it really was. It was madness, bordering on absurd.

What is also very interesting, and something most people do not know, is the extreme measurements that District Attorney Tom Sneddon went to to not only get a case going, but make sure that it spiralled out of control. Not only did he have two grand jurys involved, he set up a separate section at the Santa Barbara Police Department web site specifically and actively looking for people that had been molested by Michael Jackson. He flew overseas on a whim, because there was a story floating aorund about an Australian boy that had allegedly been fondled by Jackson. The story turned out to be fictional, but this carried on for years and years.

Right, I'm with you now...thanks for clarifying.

Also, I can't help but reacting to the comment "it's guys like him that make us look bad." "US"? I understand that he means "us gay men" but it's frankly ridiculous to put so much of your identity into your sexual orientation - that's another reason why there are so many stereotypes. The same goes for skin colour. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's nothing to be proud of either; because it has absolutely nothing to do with who someone is. "Gay" or "black" is not a personality trait, and as long as we have pride in direct connection with things such as sexual orientation or skin colour, we will also always have shame and discrimination. We shoouldn't even be using the terms because they're irrelevant. (Although I'm straying slightly from the original topic here.)

It shouldn't acrry any implication. It's 2010, when are people going to leave their homophobia behind? And I agree that it was people's overall prejudice that led to their judging him so harshly, but the truth is there were none, or very little, bizarre behaviour on his part - most of it WAS fabricated by the media, and whatw asn't (his changing appearance, for example) can be very easily psychologically explained. So those two go hand in hand in my opinion.(For and example of the press twisting things to make him look odd, please read my replies to Max Sydney Smith below about the trial.)

There is no need to be rude. I welcome your opinion just as I do everyone else's, but replying to it is a lot nicer if you are not patronizing.

As for the reason of half of America (actually 66 per cent) believing he was guilty, it was much due to the twisted, biased covering - and I do have enough insight into the trial to know this for a fact.

*cont*
As to your question of "why" people did this, I do not know. Pack mentality, greed, morbid fascination...neither? All of the above? I don't know. But I have a big problem, on a personal level, with people being the victim of untruths, slander, gossip and judgment, no matter who they are. That people, then, were given a purposely twisted version of someone, is not okay. That people don't QUESTION what they are bing told is not okay. In this case, what you also have, is a person that did so much for society and the people around him, and that had all of that ignored because people are never interested in the good news. No one ever stands at the water cooler at work gossiping about a colleague's beautiful wedding ceremony; they gossip about her ugly dress or a rumour regarding her husband cheating on her. People are idiots most of the time, and focusing on other people's failed lives - whether what they hear is accurate or not - makes them less panicky about their own.

*cont * Now, that working the way it always does; the judge gave him fifteen minutes to get there - no matter where he happened to be at the time - or he'd have to place a "wanted" arrest on him. So Michael, then, simply had no time to change. He had a jacket on, so he obviously had tried the best he could to look as representable as possible, but there was no time to change completely.

In a trial regarding possible sexual molestation, you'd think focusing on evidence (or in this case lack thereof) as opposed to what someone is wearing would be the most important thing, but that unfortunately was not the case. *cont*