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Eagles singer Don Henley sues for return of handwritten ‘Hotel California’ lyrics
NEW YORK — Don Henley, the Eagles’ singer, filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday to restore his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s classic album “Hotel California”.
The civil complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court in March after prosecutors abruptly dropped criminal charges against three collectibles specialists suspected of attempting to sell the documents.
Henley | AP News Image
Eagles singer Don Henley sues for return of handwritten ‘Hotel California’ lyrics
When the criminal prosecution against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi, and rock memorabilia vendor Edward Kosinski was dismissed, the Eagles co-founder insisted the pages were stolen and pledged to file a lawsuit.
“Hotel California,” published by the Eagles in 1977, is the third-best-selling album in the United States.
“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” Henley’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said in an emailed statement Friday.
According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages are still in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment on the case Friday.
Lawyers for Kosinski and Inciardi criticized the legal action as frivolous, stating that the criminal prosecution was dropped after it was discovered that Henley deceived prosecutors by omitting important material.
“Don Henley is desperate to rewrite history,” Kosinski’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to litigating this case and bringing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and misuse of the justice system.”
In a separate statement, Stacey Richman, Inciardi’s lawyer, said that the lawsuit seeks to “bully” and “perpetuate a false narrative.”
During the trial, the men’s lawyers claimed that Henley sent the lyrical pages to a writer who worked on an unpublished Eagles biography before selling the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who began auctioning some of the pages in 2012.
Don Henley | AP News Image
Eagles singer Don Henley sues for return of handwritten ‘Hotel California’ lyrics
The criminal case was quickly abandoned when prosecutors acknowledged that defense lawyers had been caught off guard by 6,000 pages of conversations involving Henley, his attorneys, and associates.
Prosecutors and the defense said they only acquired the materials when Henley and his lawyers decided to forgo their attorney-client privilege at the last minute, which protected legal discussions.
Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the nonjury trial that began in late February, stated that witnesses and their lawyers used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging” and that prosecutors “were apparently manipulated.”
SOURCE – (AP)
