Thomas W. Sneddon Jr. (born 1941 in Los Angeles) was the district attorney of Santa Barbara County, California. He had 22 years experience as a District Attorney and 35 years experience in prosecution. He is best known for prosecuting child molestation charges against entertainer Michael Jackson in 2005 – a trial that ended in Jackson being acquitted.

Thomas Sneddon grew up in California. In 1963 Sneddon graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where he was on the boxing team; and in 1966 from UCLA Law School, where he met his wife.

From 1967-1969, during the Vietnam War, Tom Sneddon was in the U.S. Army.

From November 1969 until May 1977 Tom Sneddon served as a Deputy District Attorney in Santa Barbara County. In 1977, he was promoted to the position of Supervisor of Criminal Operations.

On January 3, 1983, Tom Sneddon became the 33rd District Attorney of Santa Barbara County and has been re-elected without opposition for 5 terms. As of 2010 he has retired from the DA’s office.

A father of 9 children, Tom Sneddon has a track record of being involved in children and family issues. He was Chair of the Committee for Child Support Enforcement since its inception in 1991. He was presented with a "Director's Award" in 1995 by the California Family Support Council. A year later he was appointed co-chair of the National District Attorney's Child Support Committee and invited by the US Attorney General Janet Reno to be a member of the Presidential Commission's Federal Task Force to review and enhance federal criminal prosecutions for failure to pay child support.

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.

Geraldo Rivera (born Gerald Michael Riviera; July 4, 1943) is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and talk show host. Rivera hosts the newsmagazine program Geraldo at Large and appears regularly on Fox News Channel.

Rivera was born at Beth Israel Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Lillian (née Friedman), a waitress, and the late Cruz "Allen" Rivera (October 1, 1915 – November 1987), a restaurant worker and cab driver. Rivera's father was a Catholic Puerto Rican of Spanish ancestry, and his mother is of Ashkenazi Russian Jewish descent. He was raised "mostly Jewish" and had a Bar Mitzvah. He grew up in Brooklyn and West Babylon, New York. He has four siblings: Wilfredo, Sharon, Irene, and Craig.

Rivera is an alumnus of the University of Arizona, where he played varsity lacrosse as goalie. From September 1961 to May 1963, he attended the State University of New York Maritime College, where he was a member of the rowing team. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1969, did postgraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania that same year.

Wade Jeremy William Robson (born 17 September 1982) is an Australian dancer, director, producer, songwriter, and award-winning choreographer. He began performing as a dancer at the age of five. He has directed music videos and world tours for numerous music artists such as 'N Sync and Britney Spears. Robson found success not only as a choreographer and tour director but also as the host and executive producer for The Wade Robson Project which aired on MTV in 2003. In 2007, he joined the FOX television dance series, So You Think You Can Dance as both a judge and choreographer.

Robson was born 17 September 1982, in Brisbane, Queensland. He has an older brother, Shane, and an older sister, Chantal, also a dancer and choreographer. At the age of three, after watching Michael Jackson's music video "Thriller", he had the entire choreography memorized and perfected. In 1986, Robson made his first television appearance on a local Australian talent show New Faces 4 where he performed a dance routine to the Michael Jackson hit "Smooth Criminal", complete with a miniature version of the outfit as depicted in the video. In the fall of 1987, Michael Jackson's "Bad" tour had made a stop in Robson's native Australia. It was there that Robson danced away with top honors in a Michael Jackson look and dance alike contest in which the prize was to meet Jackson. So impressed was the King of Pop at the young dancing prodigy that the very next evening, Robson found himself sharing the world stage alongside his idol and entertaining an audience of over 20,000.[1]

Deborah Jeanne "Debbie" Rowe (born December 6, 1958) is an ex-wife of Michael Jackson, and the mother of two of his children. She lives in Palmdale, California.

Rowe was born into a middle class family. Her father Gordon divorced her mother Barbara a few weeks before her second birthday. Debbie was raised by her mother, a few aunts, and maternal grandmother. She has one half-sister named Loretta Scarlett Rowe who was born in 1961.

Rowe met Michael Jackson while working as a nurse in Dr. Arnold Klein's dermatology office, where Jackson was being treated for vitiligo. She recalled that after Jackson's divorce from Lisa Marie Presley in 1996, he was upset at the possibility that he might never become a father. Rowe, a longtime Jackson fan, proposed to bear his children.

It was announced she was pregnant in 1996, and the two were later married on November 14, 1996, in Sydney, Australia. It was her second marriage, her first being to Richard Edelman in 1988.

Three months after Rowe and Jackson's marriage she gave birth to son, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr. (born February 13, 1997), who was subsequently known as Prince. The next year she gave birth to daughter, Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson. (born April 3, 1998). Jackson took full responsibility for raising the children.