Eagles singer Don Henley sues for return of handwritten lyrics to “Hotel California”

NEW YORK (AP) — Eagles singer Don Henley filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday demanding the return of his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s hit album “Hotel California.”

The civil suit in Manhattan federal court comes after prosecutors abruptly dropped charges in March in the middle of a trial against three collector experts accused of plotting to sell the documents.

The Eagles co-founder insisted the pages were stolen and had announced plans to file suit when criminal proceedings were dropped against antiquarian Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski.

“Hotel California”, released by the Eagles in 1977, is the third best-selling album of all time in the US

“These 100 pages of personal lyrics belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has not authorized defendants or anyone else to sell them for profit,” Henley’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said in an emailed statement Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages remain in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment on the litigation Friday.

Attorneys for Kosinski and Inciardi dismissed the lawsuit as baseless, stressing that the criminal case was dropped after it was determined that Henley had misled prosecutors by withholding important information.

“Don Henley is determined to rewrite history,” said Shawn Crowley, Kosinski’s attorney, in an emailed statement. “We look forward to taking this case to trial and filing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and abuse of the legal system.”

Inciardi’s attorney, Stacey Richman, said in a separate statement that the lawsuit was aimed at “attempting intimidation” and “perpetuating a false narrative.”

A lawyer for Horowitz, who is not named as a defendant because he does not claim ownership of the materials, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

During the trial, the men’s lawyers argued that Henley gave the lyric pages decades ago to an author working on a never-published Eagles biography and later sold the handwritten sheets to Horowitz, who in turn sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who began auctioning off some of the pages in 2012.

The criminal case was abruptly dismissed after prosecutors concluded that defense attorneys had been essentially blindsided by 6,000 pages of correspondence between Henley, his attorneys and associates.

Prosecutors and the defense said they only received the material after Henley and his lawyers decided at the last minute to waive the attorney-client privilege that shields legal discussions.

Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the non-jury trial that began in late February, said witnesses and their lawyers had abused attorney-client privilege “to obscure and conceal information they believed could be damaging” and that prosecutors had “apparently been manipulated.”

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Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow Philip Marcelo on twitter.com/philmarcelo.

Philip Marcelo, Associated Press