Eagles co-founder Don Henley testifies ‘Hotel California’ handwritten drafts were always his property
Three rare book experts are accused of conspiring to illegally sell the Eagles' songwriting pages
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Eagles co-founder Don Henley testified this week that handwritten lyric drafts for their 1976 "Hotel California" album that ended up at auction were always his sole property.
"I always knew those lyrics were my property. I never gifted them or gave them to anybody to keep or sell," Henley said in a New York City courtroom on Wednesday.
Three rare book experts, Glenn Horowitz, Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski, are on trial, charged with scheming to sell around 100 pages of "developmental lyrics to the Eagles song 'Hotel California,'" according to the original indictment filed by the New York District Attorney's office in 2022.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The manuscripts are collectively valued at over $1 million, according to the district attorney.
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Eagles co-founder Don Henley testified this week that handwritten lyric drafts for their 1976 "Hotel California" album that ended up at auction were always his sole property. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Prosecutors allege the three men circulated fake stories about the manuscripts’ ownership in order to sell them.
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Defense lawyers argue that the men obtained the drafts legally from a writer who worked on an Eagles biography with Henley decades ago that was never published after Henley gave them to him. Kosinski, Inciardi and Horowitz have pleaded not guilty.
Don Henley and the Eagles performing in 1979. (Fotos International/Getty Images)
"Hotel California" is one of the best-selling albums of all time.
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The case centers on how the legal pad pages made their way from Henley’s Southern California barn to the biographer's home in New York's Hudson Valley, and then to the defendants in New York City.
Don Henley arriving to court in New York on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Henley has testified that he allowed the unpublished biography writer Ed Sanders to look at the drafts, but he was required to give them back.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sanders, who isn’t charged in the case, sold the drafts to Horowitz, who then sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski. The two men then put them up for auction in 2012.
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The trial is expected to continue for weeks as The Eagles continue their "Long Goodbye" tour.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Associated Press contributed to this report.