A curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and two other men were charged Tuesday in New York for allegedly attempting to sell handwritten notes and lyrics by Don Henley of the Eagles.
Craig Inciardi, who has been placed on leave from the Rock Hall, is accused along with Glenn Horowitz and Edward Kosinski of conspiracy in the fourth degree.
Inciardi, 58, and Kosinski, 59, are also charged with criminal possession of stolen property and Horowitz, 66, is charged with attempted criminal possession and two counts of hindering prosecution.
According to a release from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, the men “attempted to sell the manuscripts, manufactured false provenance, and lied to auction houses, potential buyers, and law enforcement about the origin of the material.”
Prosecutors claim the manuscripts, currently valued at more than $1 million U.S., were stolen in the late 1970s by an unnamed Eagles biographer who sold them to Horowitz in 2005. He then sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski.
Henley went to police when he learned that Inciardi and Kosinski were trying to sell the papers. The two men are accused of fabricating a statement of provenance and trying to “coerce” Henley into buying the material and also trying to sell the papers via auction houses.
Investigators obtained a warrant to retrieve the documents from Kosinski’s home in 2016 but prosecution was thwarted when Horowitz allegedly produced a false statement of provenance claiming the materials had belonged to Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, who died in 2016.
“These defendants attempted to keep and sell these unique and valuable manuscripts, despite knowing they had no right to do so,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr., in a release. “They made up stories about the origin of the documents and their right to possess them so they could turn a profit.”