NEW YORK (AP) — From the beginning, the case was highly unusual: a criminal trial centered on disputed ownership of a home. Cache of handwritten words to “Hotel California” and other Eagles songs.
Its ending was even more unexpected.
Midway through the trial, New York prosecutors abruptly dropped their case Wednesday against three collectibles experts who were charged with conspiring to latch onto and promote the pages, which Eagles co-founder Don Henley confirmed were stolen, private artifacts of the band's creative process. .
In explaining this stunning turnaround, prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers were stunned in recent days after obtaining 6,000 pages of communications relating to Henley, his lawyers and his associates. The materials were only made available to both sides in the past few days, after Henley and his lawyers apparently made a late decision to waive attorney-client privilege to keep legal discussions confidential.
“These late disclosures revealed relevant information that the defense should have had the opportunity to explore” when Henley and other prosecution witnesses were on the stand, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Aaron Jenandez told the court.
Rare book dealer Glenn Hurwitz, former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame trustee Craig Inciardi, and rock memorabilia salesman Edward Kosinski were acquitted of all charges that included conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property.
The case centered on nearly 100 pages of legal pad created by the classic rock giant. The 1976 album “Hotel California” is ranked as the best Third largest seller of all time in the US, thanks in large part to the strength of the smoothly troubling and rousing title track about a place where “you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.”
Prosecutors said the defendants knew the pages had a questionable chain of ownership, but sought to keep and sell them anyway, planning to fabricate a provenance that would gain favor with auction houses and avoid Henley's demands to return the documents.
Through their lawyers, the defendants confirmed that they are the rightful owners of the pages that were not stolen by anyone.
“The next step is to rebuild our reputation,” Inciardi said in a written statement after the dismissal. Upon leaving court, Kosinski said only that he felt “very good” about the end of the case.
Horowitz hugged tearful family members, then left court without commenting. Jonathan Bach, one of his lawyers, said the case “should never have been brought.”
Meanwhile, Henley's lawyer indicated that he is not finished with the matter.
“As the victim in this case, Mr. Henley once again fell victim to this unfair outcome,” attorney Dan Petrucelli said in a statement. He will demand all his rights before the civil courts.”
They will also “evaluate next steps,” said Scott Edelman, one of Kosinski's attorneys.
“The prosecutor in this case was blinded by the fame and fortune of a celebrity, blinding them to information that was not provided to them,” Edelman said outside court.
In formally dismissing the case, Judge Curtis Farber said prosecutors “appear to have been manipulated.” Without naming names, he said witnesses and their attorneys used attorney-client privilege “to obscure and conceal information they believed would be damaging.” The communications that led to the case being dismissed have not been made public.
The defense asserted that Henley gave the lyrics pages decades ago to a writer who worked on a never-published Eagles biography and later sold the handwritten papers to Horowitz. He in turn sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who began putting some of the pages up for auction in 2012.
Henley, who only realized they were missing when they were put up for sale, reported them stolen. to attest that during the trial he allowed the clerk to look over the documents for research but he “never gave them away or gave them to any person to keep or sell.”
The writer has not been accused of any crime and has not taken a position. He did not respond to messages related to the trial.
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