Charges dropped midtrial in ‘Hotel California’ lyrics case
NEW YORK — From the start, the case was highly unusual: a criminal prosecution centered on the disputed ownership of a cache of hand-drafted lyrics to “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits.
Its end was even more unexpected. In the middle of trial, New York prosecutors abruptly dropped their case Wednesday against three collectibles experts who had been accused of conspiring to hang onto and peddle the pages, which Eagles co-founder Don Henley maintained were stolen, private artifacts of the band’s creative process.
In explaining the stunning turnabout, prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided in recent days by getting 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates. The material was provided to both sides only in the last few days, after Henley and his lawyers apparently made a late-in-the-game decision to waive their attorney-client privilege to keep legal discussions confidential.
“These delayed disclosures revealed relevant information that the defense should have had the opportunity to explore” when Henley and other prosecution witnesses were on the stand, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Aaron Ginandes told the court.
With that, rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski were cleared of all the charges, which had included conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property.
The case centered on roughly 100 pages of legal-pad pages from the creation of a classic rock colossus. The 1976 album “Hotel California” ranks as the third-biggest seller of all time in the U.S., in no small part on the strength of its evocative, smoothly unsettling title track about a place where “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Prosecutors had said the defendants knew the pages had a dubious chain of ownership but sought to keep and sell them anyway, scheming to fabricate a provenance that would pass muster with auction houses and stave off Henley’s demands for the return of the documents.
Through their lawyers, the defendants contended they were rightful owners of pages that weren’t stolen by anyone.
“The next step is building back our reputations,” Inciardi said in a written statement after the dismissal. Kosinski, leaving court, said only that he felt “very good” about the case’s end.
Horowitz hugged tearful family members, then left court without commenting. One of his lawyers, Jonathan Bach, said the case “should never have been brought.”
A lawyer for Henley, meanwhile, signaled that he isn’t done with the matter.
“As the victim in this case, Mr. Henley has once again been victimized by this unjust outcome,” attorney Dan Petrocelli said in a statement. “He will pursue all his rights in the civil courts.”