On June 28, 2024, Don Henley, a founding member of the Eagles, sued in Manhattan federal court to regain ownership and possession of lyric sheets from the iconic Hotel California album.
Hotel California was released in 1976 and is the fifth studio album by the Eagles. It is one of the best-selling albums of all time with 32 million copies sold. Who can forget the opening lyrics to Hotel California: “On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.”
The same lyric sheets had been the subject of a criminal action, when in March 2024 it was suddenly dismissed during trial by the prosecutor after discovering “damaging” new disclosures. The judge in the criminal case said witnesses and their lawyers used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging” and that the prosecutors “were apparently manipulated.” The current case is a civil case wherein Henley seeks a declaratory judgment stating that he owns approximately 100 pages of his handwritten lyric sheets and that they should be returned to him.
According to Henley’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli:
“Don Henley has filed today in a New York federal court for return of property that was stolen from him—his private handwritten notes and lyrics to the iconic songs from the Hotel California album. These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit.”
The subject lyric sheets are currently being held by the New York County District Attorney who was investigating how defendants Craig Inciarte and Edward Kosinski obtained possession of them.
In the current civil complaint, Henley alleges that he discovered the lyrics were missing after defendant Kosinski attempted to put up four lyric sheets for auction in 2012. Kosinski alleges that he had gotten the lyrics from Ed Sanders, a writer the Eagles had hired in 1979 to write a book about the band that was never published. Sanders never returned the lyrics to Henley and the late Glenn Frey.
According to the lawsuit, Sanders sold five pads in 2007 to Glenn Horowitz, a book dealer. In 2012 Horowitz then sold them to Kosinski and Inciardi.
Henley further alleges that Kosinski and Inciardi tried to ransom the lyrics back to Henley who notified law enforcement who then seized the approximately 100 pages from Kosinski and a number of auction houses.
The attorneys for Kosinski and Inciardi claim the civil action is baseless, indicating that the criminal case was dismissed after it was determined that Henley had misled prosecutors by not supplying certain important information. According to Kosinski’s attorney, Shawn Crowley: “We look forward to litigating this case and bringing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and misuse of the justice system.”
Stacey Richman, Inciardi’s lawyer, said the lawsuit is an attempt to “bully” and “perpetrate a false narrative.”
