A malicious prosecution lawsuit brought against the Eagles‘ Don Henley and his long-time manager, Irving Azoff, has been dismissed.
It follows a previous case against three collectables experts in March, after Glenn Horowitz, Edward Kosinski and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi were accused of attempting to sell handwritten notes and lyrics from the classic 1977 single ‘Hotel California’, as well as its follow-up ‘Life In The Fast Lane’, back in 2022.
Officials estimated at the time that the documents were worth over $1million (£792,000) in total, with the defendants maintaining that they had legally obtained the lyric sheets from author Ed Sanders, who was hired to write a biography for The Eagles in the late ’70s. Sanders sold the notepad to Horowitz – a rare book dealer – for $50,000 (£39,609) back in 2005.
However, the judge dropped the case midway after concluding that Henley had “manipulated” prosecutors by withholding evidence, saying at the time that Henley, Azoff, and their lawyers had “used the privilege to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen”.
Henley has since maintained that the documents were stolen. Back in February, this prompted Horowitz to sue both Henley and Azoff for malicious prosecution. He alleged the pair had manipulated New York prosecutors into charging him and two other innocent men.
Henley and Azoff say they did nothing wrong and pointed to the collapse of the criminal case as being based on a technicality. A judge in a New York court sided with the duo earlier this month and dismissed the malicious prosecution claims as legally deficient.
“There was ample probable cause for the DA to bring a case against Mr. Horowitz; indeed, a grand jury indicted Mr. Horowitz based upon the DA’s independent and years long investigation,” wrote Justice Kathleen Waterman-Marshall, per Billboard.
“The dismissal of the case at trial after complainant Henley produced documents — none of which were found to exculpate Mr. Horowitz — did not result from any bad faith conduct on the part of the defendants and, thus, does not change this result.”
In a statement given to the publication on Friday (November 21), Henley’s attorney Dan Petrocelli said: “The only malicious prosecution was Horowitz’s own lawsuit, which the court promptly and rightly dismissed.”
Meanwhile, Horowitz’s lawyer, Caitlin Robin, told Billboard that they will appeal Justice Waterman-Marshall’s decision. Horowitz also has a separate malicious prosecution lawsuit still pending against the city of New York.
