Authorities in New York have charged three people in connection with their possession of 100 pages of lyrical notes from Eagles frontman Don Henley.
In a news release Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) announced that Glenn Horowitz, 66, Craig Inciardi, 58, and Edward Kosinski, 59, were all charged as part of the scheme.
The manuscripts were originally stolen by a writer who was hired to write a biography of the rock band more than 40 years ago, according to court documents. The author allegedly sold the manuscripts to Horowitz in 2005. Horowitz, a rare book dealer, then sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski.
After learning of the stolen manuscripts, Henley himself tried to intervene, including filing a police report.
The individuals at the center of the alleged theft have been involved in a years-long battle with Henley to prevent him from recovering the material. Both Horowitz and Inciardi went so far as to fabricate the provenance of the manuscripts. Inciardi and Kosinski used the false statement of provenance to force the frontman to buy back his stolen manuscripts.
Individuals also attempted to sell the stolen manuscripts through Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses, but all withheld information about Henley’s claims from potential buyers.
Authorities executed a series of search warrants and recovered Henley’s stolen manuscripts, including 84 pages of songs from the Eagles’ 1977 album “Hotel California,” which included lyrics from songs such as “Hotel California,” “Life in the Fast Lane” and “New kid in town,” the news release said.
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Authorities added that Horowitz tried to protect himself from prosecution by creating a new false statement of provenance that claimed band member Glenn Frey, who died in 2016, was the original owner of the stolen material.
“New York is a world-class center for arts and culture, and those who trade in cultural artifacts must strictly comply with the law. There is no place for those who would want to flout basic expectations of fair treatment and undermine public trust in our cultural commerce for their own ends,” Bragg said in a statement.
“These defendants attempted to preserve and sell these unique and valuable manuscripts, even though they knew they had no right to do so. They made up stories about the origin of the documents and their right to possess them so they could make a profit,” he added.
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