Don Henley regrets 1980 sex worker incident
NEW YORK • Don Henley testified Monday that a “poor decision” led to his arrest in 1980, when authorities said they found drugs and a 16-year-old sex worker suffering from an overdose at his Los Angeles home.
Henley was asked about the arrest as he testified at a criminal trial surrounding what he says were stolen, handwritten draft lyrics to “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits.
Henley said he called for a sex worker on a night in November 1980 because he “wanted to escape the depression I was in” over the breakup of the superstar band.
“I wanted to forget about everything that was happening with the band, and I made a poor decision which I regret to this day. I’ve had to live with it for 44 years. I’m still living with it today, in this courtroom. Poor decision,” the 76-year-old testified in a raspy drawl.
As he has in the past, Henley said he didn’t know the girl’s age until after his arrest and that he did cocaine with and went to bed with the girl, but never had sex with her.
“I don’t remember the anatomical details, but I know there was no sex,” he said.
He said he called firefighters, who checked the girl’s health, found her to be OK and left, with him promising to take care of her.
The paramedics, who found her in the nude, called police, authorities said at the time. Authorities said at the time that they found cocaine, quaaludes and marijuana at his Los Angeles home.
Henley pleaded no contest in 1981 to a misdemeanour charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
He was sentenced to probation and a $2,500 fine, and he requested a drug education program to get some possession charges dismissed.
Henley was in the New York courtroom Monday to talk about something else — his version of how handwritten pages from the development of the band’s blockbuster 1976 album made their way from his Southern California barn to New York auctions decades later.
But a prosecutor asked about the arrest early on, apparently to do so before defence lawyers could.
The Grammy-winning singer and drummer and vociferous artists’-rights activist is prosecutors’ star witness at the trial, where three collectibles professionals face charges including criminally possessing stolen property.
They’re accused of colluding to veil the documents’ questioned ownership in order to try to sell them and deflect Henley’s demands for their return.