Don Henley

Prosecutors in the trial involving handwritten lyrics from the Eagles 1976 classic Hotel California dismissed the case on Wednesday in a surprise decision that seemingly puts an end to one of the more unusual music-related criminal trials in recent years. In the criminal case, three men were accused of conspiring to possess stolen property. That property in question was over 100 pages of drafts of songs from the Eagles’ landmark album, written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey. The trial was heading into its third week…

“I’m losing my voice,” Don Henley said in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday. No surprise: The 76-year-old leader of the Eagles was wrapping up his third day of testimony in a case involving allegedly stolen pads containing developmental lyrics for Eagles songs. After being handed a lozenge by one of the prosecutors in the case, Henley resumed answering questions about the pads, a 1979 contract between the band and writer Ed Sanders (who was writing an authorized biography of the group), and other matters from…

Seated at a witness stand in Manhattan court on Monday, Don Henley was doing his best to contain himself and what he was feeling. But every so often, the boldface-name witness in a trial involving allegedly stolen handwritten lyrics to songs from the Eagles’ Hotel California couldn’t help himself. Take the moment Henley was asked if he recalled sending legal pads with lyric drafts to writer Ed Sanders for research of the group’s planned Eagles biography more than 40 years ago. “I don’t recall offering to send him…

A year and a half after three men were arrested for allegedly conspiring to sell handwritten lyrics to Eagles songs without the band’s consent, their trial finally began yesterday — and with its share of allegations, backstage tidbits, and a cliffhanger worthy of a fictional TV trial. On Wednesday, the three defendants — rare-books collector Glenn Horowitz, memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski, and former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi — faced a judge, but no jury, in New York State Supreme…

Call it the long run of rock collectors’ trials — one that’s finally scheduled to begin this week after a lengthy delay. In one of the most high-profile cases involving the world of music memorabilia, three men were arrested in July 2020, charged with attempting to sell pages of hand-written lyrics to songs from the Eagles’ 1976 album Hotel California (and allegedly lying about the origins of the ownership). The value of the documents was reported to be more than $1 million and included drafts of songs like the…