Prosecutors drop costs midtrial towards 3 accused of possessing stolen ‘Lodge California’ lyrics

NEW YORK — New York prosecutors abruptly dropped their felony 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 choose at 10 a.m. that prosecutors would now not proceed with the case, citing newly out there emails that protection attorneys mentioned raised questions in regards to the trial’s equity. The trial had been underway since late February.
“The folks concede that dismissal is acceptable on this case,” Ginandes mentioned.
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,” Choose 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 power of its evocative, easily unsettling title monitor about a spot the place “you may try any time you want, however you may by no means depart.”
The accused had been three well-established figures within the collectibles world: uncommon books supplier Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame curator Craig Inciardi, and rock memorabilia vendor Edward Kosinski.
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 cross muster with public sale homes and stave off calls for to return the paperwork to Eagles co-founder Don Henley.
The defendants pleaded not responsible to costs together with conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property. By way of their attorneys, the lads contended that they had been rightful homeowners of pages that weren’t stolen by anybody.
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 offered the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He, in flip, offered them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who began placing a number of the pages up for public sale in 2012.
Henley, who realized they had been lacking solely after they confirmed up on the market, reported them stolen. He testified that on the trial that he let the author pore by means of 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.