Charges Unexpectedly Dropped in 'Hotel California' Theft Trial

Members of The Eagles, from left, Timothy B. Schmit, Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh pose with an autographed guitar after a news conference at the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 19, 2013, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
Members of The Eagles, from left, Timothy B. Schmit, Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh pose with an autographed guitar after a news conference at the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 19, 2013, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
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Charges Unexpectedly Dropped in 'Hotel California' Theft Trial

Members of The Eagles, from left, Timothy B. Schmit, Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh pose with an autographed guitar after a news conference at the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 19, 2013, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
Members of The Eagles, from left, Timothy B. Schmit, Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh pose with an autographed guitar after a news conference at the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 19, 2013, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

Prosecutors unexpectedly dropped charges Wednesday against three antique collectors accused of handling stolen lyrics for 1970s hit "Hotel California" and other tracks by rock group the Eagles.

The trial began in New York in February with veteran frontman Don Henley as a key witness and was centered on handwritten, draft lyrics allegedly stolen from the band in the 1970s.

However, closing the case on Wednesday morning, a judge said that a new 6,000-page cache of emails -- previously not disclosed to the court -- cast doubt over the prosecution.

Judge Curtis Farber said Henley and former Eagles manager Irving Azoff had used legal privilege to "shield themselves from a thorough and complete cross-examination" during the trial.

"It is now clear that both witnesses and their lawyers (...) used the privilege to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen," he said.

The three defendants, Craig Inciardi, Glenn Horowitz, and Edward Kosinski, had been charged with criminal possession of stolen goods, which they denied, according to AFP.

The allegations dated back to the late 1970s, when an author hired by the Eagles to write its biography was entrusted with around 100 pages of the band's notes, which he never returned.

Henley claimed this was theft, though the biographer did not face any criminal charges.

According to prosecutors, the author eventually sold the pages in 2005 to Horowitz, a rare book dealer, who in turn sold them to collectors Inciardi and Kosinski.

Henley said he became aware of the alleged theft in 2012 when he saw some of the notes being auctioned online for $8,500, which he bought as a way of "buying my property back".

Other pages surfaced at auctions over the following years, including a batch of thirteen pages handwritten for the song "Hotel California".

The Eagles are widely considered one of the most successful rock groups of all time. Their 1976 album "Hotel California", which featured the hit track of the same name, is the third-best selling album in the US.



Muddy Footprints Suggest 2 Species of Early Humans Were Neighbors in Kenya 1.5 Million Years Ago

An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP
An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP
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Muddy Footprints Suggest 2 Species of Early Humans Were Neighbors in Kenya 1.5 Million Years Ago

An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP
An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP

Muddy footprints left on a Kenyan lakeside suggest two of our early human ancestors were nearby neighbors some 1.5 million years ago.
The footprints were left in the mud by two different species “within a matter of hours, or at most days,” said paleontologist Louise Leakey, co-author of the research published Thursday in the journal Science.
Scientists previously knew from fossil remains that these two extinct branches of the human evolutionary tree – called Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei – lived about the same time in the Turkana Basin.
But dating fossils is not exact. “It’s plus or minus a few thousand years,” said paleontologist William Harcourt-Smith of Lehman College and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not involved in the study.
Yet with fossil footprints, “there’s an actual moment in time preserved,” he said. “It’s an amazing discovery.”
The tracks of fossil footprints were uncovered in 2021 in what is today Koobi Fora, Kenya, said Leaky, who is based at New York's Stony Brook University.
Whether the two individuals passed by the eastern side of Lake Turkana at the same time – or a day or two apart – they likely knew of each other’s existence, said study co-author Kevin Hatala, a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.
“They probably saw each other, probably knew each other was there and probably influenced each other in some way,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Scientists were able to distinguish between the two species because of the shape of the footprints, which holds clues to the anatomy of the foot and how it’s being used.
H. erectus appeared to be walking similar to how modern humans walk – striking the ground heel first, then rolling weight over the ball of the foot and toes and pushing off again.
The other species, which was also walking upright, was moving “in a different way from anything else we’ve seen before, anywhere else,” said co-author Erin Marie Williams-Hatala, a human evolutionary anatomist at Chatham.
Among other details, the footprints suggest more mobility in their big toe, compared to H. erectus or modern humans, said Hatala.
Our common primate ancestors probably had hands and feet adapted for grasping branches, but over time the feet of human ancestors evolved to enable walking upright, researchers say.
The new study adds to a growing body of research that implies this transformation to bipedalism – walking on two feet — didn’t happen at a single moment, in a single way.
Rather, there may have been a variety of ways that early humans learned to walk, run, stumble and slide on prehistoric muddy slopes.
“It turns out, there are different gait mechanics – different ways of being bipedal,” said Harcourt-Smith.