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New York prosecutors abruptly dropped their legal case midtrial Wednesday towards three males who had been accused of conspiring to own a cache of hand-drafted lyrics to “Lodge California” and different Eagles hits. Assistant Manhattan District Lawyer Aaron Ginandes knowledgeable the decide at 10 a.m. that prosecutors would not proceed with the case, citing newly accessible emails that protection attorneys mentioned raised questions in regards to the trial’s equity.
The trial had been underway since late February.
The raft of communications emerged solely when Eagles star Don Henley apparently determined final week to waive attorney-client privilege, after he and different prosecution witnesses had already testified. The protection argued that the brand new disclosures raised questions that it hadn’t been capable of ask.
“Witnesses and their attorneys” used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and conceal data that they believed can be damaging,” Decide Curtis Farber mentioned in dismissing the case.
The case centered on roughly 100 pages of legal-pad pages from the creation of a traditional rock colossus. The 1976 album “Lodge California” ranks because the third-biggest vendor of all time within the U.S., in no small half on the energy of its evocative, easily unsettling title monitor about a spot the place “you’ll be able to take a look at any time you want, however you’ll be able to by no means depart.”
In 2016, “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King requested Henley in regards to the that means of “Lodge California.”
“Nicely, I at all times say, it is a journey from innocence to expertise. It is probably not about California; it is about America,” Henley mentioned. “It is in regards to the darkish underbelly of the American dream. It is about extra, it is about narcissism. It is in regards to the music enterprise. It is about a whole lot of totally different. … It may possibly have 1,000,000 interpretations.”
The accused within the trial had been three well-established figures within the collectibles world: uncommon books seller Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame curator Craig Inciardi, and rock memorabilia vendor Edward Kosinski.
AP Picture/Mary Altaffer
Prosecutors had mentioned the lads knew the pages had a doubtful chain of possession however peddled them anyway, scheming to manufacture a provenance that might move muster with public sale homes and stave off calls for to return the paperwork to Henley.
The defendants pleaded not responsible to fees together with conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property. By means of their attorneys, the lads contended that they have been rightful homeowners of pages that weren’t stolen by anybody.
“We’re glad the district legal professional’s workplace lastly made the suitable resolution to drop this case. It ought to by no means have been introduced,” Jonathan Bach, an legal professional for Horowitz, mentioned outdoors courtroom.
Horowitz hugged tearful members of the family however didn’t remark whereas leaving courtroom. Inciardi additionally declined to talk outdoors the courtroom however mentioned in an announcement, “The following step is constructing again our reputations.”
Considered one of Kosinski’s attorneys, Scott Edelman, mentioned outdoors courtroom they might consider potential future authorized strikes, “given the decide’s statements of great concern in regards to the veracity of the witnesses.”
Edelman recommended prosecutors for his or her final resolution however added, “It is too little and too late.”
“The district legal professional on this case bought blinded by the celebrity and fortune of a celeb,” Edelman mentioned, “and that blinded them to the knowledge that they weren’t being given.”
Henley’s present lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, mentioned in an emailed assertion that the attorney-client privilege that had beforehand shielded a number of the communications “is a foundational guardrail in our justice system” that ought to hardly ever be forsaken.
“Because the sufferer on this case, Mr. Henley has as soon as once more been victimized by this unjust end result,” Petrocelli mentioned. “He’ll pursue all his rights within the civil courts.”
The protection maintained that Henley gave the paperwork a long time in the past to a author who labored on a never-published Eagles biography and later bought the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He, in flip, bought them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who began placing a number of the pages up for public sale in 2012.
Henley, who realized they have been lacking solely after they confirmed up on the market, reported them stolen. He testified on the trial that he let the author pore via the paperwork for analysis however “by no means gifted them or gave them to anyone to maintain or promote.”
The author wasn’t charged with any crime and hasn’t taken the stand. He hasn’t responded to messages in regards to the trial.
In a letter to the courtroom, Ginandes, the prosecutor, mentioned the waiver of attorney-client privilege resulted within the belated manufacturing of about 6,000 pages of fabric.
“These delayed disclosures revealed related data that the protection ought to have had the chance to discover in cross-examination of the Folks’s witnesses,” Ginandes wrote.
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