Eagles co-founder Don Henley is suing to get back 100 pages of handwritten lyric sheets for the famous song “Hotel California.”
He claims they were stolen and has been battling in courts since March when a New York court dropped a criminal case against three men trying to sell him the goods.
Don Henley Sues For Handwritten Lyrics
Henley’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said, “These personal lyric sheets are irreplaceable to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never subscribed to the notion that they are collectibles to be bought or sold.” The suit comes a week after prosecutors in Manhattan dropped criminal charges against three people accused of trying to sell the manuscripts.
The handwritten pages are now in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The criminal case was dismissed in mid-trial after a batch of new emails that defense lawyers argued showed that the trial was unfair. Henley, now represented by newly retained attorney Petrocelli, will look to seek redress in civil court and charges that the criminal case was unjust.
Ed Sanders is said to have removed the notepads containing the lyrics while working on an officially authorized Eagles biography in the 1980s. The book was not released, and Sanders disposed of the pages to rare book dealer Horowitz for $50,000, who then sold them to Inciardi, a former curator of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and memorabilia collector Kosinski.
In 2012, Henley caught them trying to sell the lyrics and repurchased some pages for $8,500. After Henley had launched the reacquisition of his property, Inciardi and Kosinski never ceased selling the disputed lyrics through different auction houses. It was only in the year 2016 that the office of the DA managed to recover the stolen manuscripts. The Henley case is hoped to bring an assurance for the reacquisition of his earlier splendor and halt the sale of the disputed property.
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