Charges are dropped midtrial in `Hotel California' lyrics case
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 scheming to peddle the pages, which Eagles cofounder Don Henley maintained were stolen, private artifacts of the band's creative process.
In explaining the turnabout, prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided by 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates. Prosecutors and the defense got the material only in the past few days, after Henley and his lawyers apparently made a late-in-the-game decision to waive their attorney-client privilege shielding legal discussions.
“These delayed disclosures revealed relevant information that the defense should have had the opportunity to explore” when Henley and other prosecution witnesses testified late last month, Manhattan Assistant 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 charges that included conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property.
The case centered on roughly 100 pages of legal-pad pages, many 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' chain of possession was shaky but sought to sell them anyway, contriving to fabricate a provenance that would pass muster with auction houses and stave off Henley's demands for the return of the handwritten sheets.
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.
Henley lawyer Dan Petrocelli, meanwhile, said the musician plans to turn to civil courts.
“As the victim in this case, Mr. Henley has once again been victimized by this unjust outcome,” Petrocelli said in a statement.
One of Kosinski's lawyers, Scott Edelman, said they also were going to “evaluate next steps.”
The communications that led to the case dismissal weren't released publicly. But in court earlier this week, defense lawyers said the trove had identified additional potential witnesses and raised questions about some testimony from Henley and others.