Why are Don Henley and his manager Irving Azoff being sued? Lawsuit over stolen ‘Hotel California’ lyrics dispute explored

A rare books dealer, once accused of trying to sell stolen copies of handwritten lyrics of the Eagles' Hotel California album, has filed a lawsuit against Don Henley and manager Irving Azoff.

According to the Independent, Glenn Horowitz, who was cleared of any wrongdoing, says that Henley knew that the accusations were fabricated but he chose to file criminal charges anyway. He claims that Henley tarnished his public standing to prevent the copies from being sold. Longtime Eagles manager Irving Azoff has also been named as a defendant.

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The case against Don Henley and Irving Azoff explored:

Last year, Glenn Horowitz was one of three defendants accused of conspiring to possess stolen property, which was over 100 pages of drafts from the Eagles' album. During the 2010s, some of these pages, written by Henley and Glenn Frey, were slated to be put up for auction.

However, the former claimed that they were stolen, and decided to pursue criminal charges at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. By the summer of 2022, Horowitz and the other two defendants were indicted.

"Soon after acquiring Henley’s lyric sheets, [Kosinski] and Inciardi began a nearly five-year campaign to profit from Henley’s lyric sheets by selling or auctioning them off song by song, forcing Henley to intervene each time, including by notifying law enforcement," Henley wrote in his complaint at the time, according to Court House News.

As for his own 32-page lawsuit, it was filed Thursday evening. In it, he accuses Don Henley of deliberately hiding the truth from officials and prosecutors. Per the Independent, Henley now stands accused of "malicious prosecution, tortious interference, loss of services, and intentional infliction of emotional distress."

However, as reported by the outlet, Don Henley has categorically maintained that he never wanted to give up or sell the lyrics as he considered them his personal property. The pages to the song Hotel California were reportedly worth well over $1 million alone.

“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,” Henley’s lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, said at the time, per the New York Post.

In an email to the outlet, Horowitz's attorney, Caitlin Robin, said:

“Glenn is looking forward to his day in court. He already cleared his name when the charges against him were dismissed but it's time to hold those responsible who were involved in his malicious prosecution.”

In response, Petrocelli recently told Rolling Stone,

“Don Henley was a witness and a victim in a criminal trial brought by the Manhattan District Attorney after a formal indictment of Glenn Horowitz by a New York grand jury. The indictment highlighted the dark underbelly of the memorabilia business that exploited the brazen, unauthorized taking and selling of Mr. Henley’s handwritten lyrics. The only malicious prosecution involved here is the filing of this case by Mr. Horowitz.”

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Horowitz is now contending that the allegations levied against him by Don Henley put him at risk of potential time in prison, damaged his business by about $10 million, and left him and his wife Tracey with “severe emotional distress.”