Milbank LLP successfully represented an individual accused of criminally possessing allegedly stolen handwritten lyrics to songs from the Eagles’ 1976 album “Hotel California.” In July 2022, the Manhattan DA charged Edward Kosinski, the owner of an online auction and collectibles website, and two other defendants, with criminal possession of allegedly stolen property and conspiracy. On March 6, 2024, the Manhattan DA voluntarily dropped the criminal charges midway through the trial, following Mr. Kosinski’s motion to dismiss the case based on newly produced evidence.
Mr. Kosinski purchased the handwritten lyrics from a reputable bookseller in 2012. He was told that the materials were originally obtained in the 1970s by Ed Sanders, a journalist who was writing a biography about the band. Mr. Sanders sent an email to Mr. Kosinski confirming the provenance of the materials. When Mr. Kosinski posted some of the lyrics for sale on a public auction site, Don Henley claimed they had been stolen, but he never substantiated the claim and instead agreed to purchase a handful of pages back from Mr. Kosinski. These charges were brought over ten years later.
Mr. Henley and others testified early in the trial that these materials were stolen from Mr. Henley, but a week and a half into the trial, Mr. Henley belatedly waived his attorney-client privilege and produced thousands of communications contradicting that the materials were stolen. Mr. Henley’s waiver came after Mr. Kosinski had sought relief from the Court based on Mr. Henley’s and his lawyers’ invocation of the attorney-client privilege.
"These jarringly late disclosures, in violation of both discovery mandates and the defendants' constitutional rights of confrontation, directly relate to the allegations in this case," New York Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber said while agreeing to dismiss the case. "Mr. Henley [and another witness used] the privilege to shield themselves from a thorough and complete cross-examination [and] to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen."
Milbank Chairman Scott Edelman said following the case’s dismissal: “Mr. Kosinski is innocent. The DA never should have brought charges against Mr. Kosinski. The evidence at trial demonstrated that the lyrics had been voluntarily provided by the Eagles in the early 1980s to Ed Sanders who was writing a book about the band. Mr. Sanders was never charged with theft and there was no evidence that he stole the lyrics. The evidence at trial was overwhelming that Mr. Kosinski never believed that any of the lyrics were stolen. To the contrary, he placed the lyrics up for public auction on three occasions because he believed that he had the right to do so.”
Milbank Partner Matthew Laroche added, “Mr. Kosinski is a wonderful person and a well-known and highly respected professional in the collectibles industry. He had his life upended for years based on a criminal investigation and prosecution that never should have occurred. We are thrilled that this nightmare has finally ended, and that Mr. Kosinski and his family can move on knowing his name has been cleared.”
The team was led by Mr. Edelman and Mr. Laroche and included Litigation & Arbitration associates Lacey Reimer and Jeremy Wertz.
