Don Henley arriving at Manhattan Criminal Court on Feb. 26, 2024.Photo:YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty

US musician Don Henley of the band “Eagles” arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court on February 26, 2024, in New York. The Eagles frontman Don Henley said Monday he was the victim of “extortion” as the trial began of three men accused of trying to sell around 100 pages of stolen notes from the band’s 1976 album “Hotel California”.

YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty

Eagles rocker Don Henley took the stand in a New York courtroom on Monday, where he reflected on his regrets surrounding his 1980 arrest and doubled down on his claim that a former Eagles biographer did not have permission to keep 100 pages of handwritten lyrics that are now thesubject of a criminal trial.

Henley, 76, testified that he “never gave” writer Ed Sanders permission to keep pages of his lyrics, which contain the words to Eagles hits like “Hotel California” and more, upon the start of their working relationship in 1979, according to theAssociated Press.

Sanders had reportedly started working with the Eagles on a biography that was ultimately never published — though Henley testified he may have given Sanders, who is not charged in the case, access to the papers in order to help with the writing of the book.

Sanders sold the lyric pages in 2005 to rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz, who later sold them to memorabilia specialists Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski,according to the AP. Horowitz, Inciardi and Kosinski have reportedly pleaded not guilty to charges including criminally possessing stolen property.

Don Henley arrives at the courtroom in Manhattan Criminal Court on Feb. 26, 2024.YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty

US musician Don Henley of the band “Eagles” arrives at the courtroom after lunch break at Manhattan Criminal Court on February 26, 2024, in New York. The Eagles frontman Don Henley said Monday he was the victim of “extortion” as the trial began of three men accused of trying to sell around 100 pages of stolen notes from the band’s 1976 album “Hotel California”.

In court on Monday, prosecutors brought up the subject of Henley’s 1980 arrest in order to get ahead of the defense’s questions over just how clearly he remembers the conversations he had with Sanders over the lyric papers around that same time, the AP reported.

In court, Henley testified that he’d called a sex worker that night because he “wanted to escape the depression I was in” following the Eagles’ 1980 breakup, the AP reported.

“I wanted to forget about everything that was happening with the band, and I made a poor decision which I regret to this day,” Henley testified. “I’ve had to live with it for 44 years. I’m still living with it today, in this courtroom. Poor decision.”

The Eagles in the Hotel California era.RB/Redferns

Photo of Glenn FREY and Joe WALSH and Don HENLEY and Don FELDER and EAGLES and Randy MEISNER

RB/Redferns

The drummer also reportedly said that he insisted he did not have sex with the teen, and that he’d called firefighters to check on the girl’s health. He also testified that he did not know the girl’s age until after he’d been arrested.

Henley has said that the lyrics papers were stolen decades ago from his barn in Malibu, and he was rattled when they began surfacing at auctions in 2012. That year, he bought back four pages for $8,500.

“It just wasn’t something that was for public viewing. It was our process,” he said Monday, according to the AP. “It was something very personal, very private. I still wouldn’t show that to anybody.”

source: people.com