California
Welcome to the 'Hotel California' case: The trial over handwritten lyrics to an Eagles classic
NEW YORK (AP) — In the mid-1970s, the Eagles were working on a spooky, cryptic new song.
On a lined yellow pad, Don Henley, with input from band co-founder Glenn Frey, jotted thoughts about “a dark desert highway” and “a lovely place” with a luxurious surface and ominous undertones. And something on ice, perhaps caviar or Taittinger — or pink Champagne?
The song, “Hotel California,” became one of rock’s most indelible singles. And nearly a half-century later, those handwritten pages of lyrics-in-the-making have become the center of an unusual criminal trial set to open Wednesday.
Rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and memorabilia seller Edward Kosinski are charged with conspiring to own and try to sell manuscripts of “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits without the right to do so.
The three have pleaded not guilty, and their lawyers have said the men committed no crime with the papers, which they acquired via a writer who’d worked with the Eagles. But the Manhattan district attorney’s office says the defendants connived to obscure the documents’ disputed ownership, despite knowing that Henley said the pages were stolen.
Clashes over valuable collectibles abound, but criminal trials like this are rare. Many fights are resolved in private, in lawsuits or with agreements to return the items.
“If you can avoid a prosecution by handing over the thing, most people just hand it over,” said Travis McDade, a University of Illinois law professor who studies rare document disputes.
Of course, the case of the Eagles manuscripts is distinctive in other ways, too.
The prosecutors’ star witness is indeed that: Henley is expected to testify between Eagles tour stops. The non-jury trial could offer a peek into the band’s creative process and life in the fast lane of ‘70s stardom.
At issue are over 80 pages of draft lyrics from the blockbuster 1976 “Hotel California” album, including words to the chart-topping, Grammy-winning title cut. It features one of classic rock’s most recognizable riffs, best-known solos and most oft-quoted — arguably overquoted — lines: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Henley has said the song is about “the dark underbelly of the American dream.”
It still was streamed over 220 million times and got 136,000 radio spins last year in the U.S. alone, according to the entertainment data company Luminate. The “Hotel California” album has sold 26 million copies nationwide over the years, bested only by an Eagles’ greatest hits disc and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
The pages also include lyrics from songs including “Life in the Fast Lane” and “New Kid in Town.” Eagles manager Irving Azoff has called the documents “irreplaceable pieces of musical history.”
Horowitz, Inciardi and Kosinki are charged with conspiracy to possess stolen property and various other offenses.
They’re not charged with actually stealing documents. Nor is anyone else, but prosecutors will still have to establish that the documents were stolen. The defense maintains that’s not true.
Much turns on the Eagles’ interactions with Ed Sanders, a writer who also co-founded the 1960s counterculture rock band the Fugs. He worked in the late ‘70s and early ’80s on an authorized Eagles biography that was never published.
Sanders isn’t charged in the case. A phone message seeking comment was left for him.
He sold the pages to Horowitz, who then sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski.
Horowitz has handled huge rare book and archive deals, and he’s been entangled in some ownership spats before. One involved papers linked to “Gone With the Wind″ author Margaret Mitchell. It was settled.
Inciardi worked on notable exhibitions for the Cleveland-based Rock Hall of Fame. Kosinski has been a principal in Gotta Have It! Collectibles, known for auctioning celebrities’ personal possessions — so personal that Madonna unsuccessfully sued to try to stop a sale that included her latex briefs.
Henley told a grand jury he never gave the biographer the lyrics, according to court filings from Kosinski’s lawyers. But defense lawyers have signaled that they plan to probe Henley’s memory of the time.
“We believe that Mr. Henley voluntarily provided the lyrics to Mr. Sanders,” attorney Scott Edelman said in court last week.
Sanders told Horowitz in 2005 that while working on the Eagles book, he was sent whatever papers he wanted from Henley’s home in Malibu, California, according to the indictment.
Then Kosinski’s business offered some pages at auction in 2012. Henley’s attorneys came knocking. And Horowitz, Inciardi and Sanders, in varying combinations, began batting around alternate versions of the manuscripts’ provenance, the indictment says.
In one story, Sanders found the pages discarded in a backstage dressing room. In others, he got them from a stage assistant or while amassing “a lot of material related to the Eagles from different people.” In yet another, he obtained them from Frey — an account that “would make this go away once and for all,” Horowitz suggested in 2017. Frey had died the year before.
“He merely needs gentle handling and reassurance that he’s not going to the can,” Horowitz emailed Inciardi during a 2012 exchange about getting Sanders’ “‘explanation’ shaped into a communication” to auctioneers, the indictment says.
Sanders supplied or signed off on some of the varying explanations, according to the indictment, and it’s unclear what he may have conveyed verbally. But he apparently rejected at least the dressing-room tale.
Kosinki forwarded one explanation, approved by Sanders, to Henley’s lawyer. Kosinski also assured Sotheby’s auction house that the musician had “no claim” to the documents and asked to keep potential bidders in the dark about Henley’s complaints, the indictment says.
Sotheby’s listed the “Hotel California” song lyrics in a 2016 auction but withdrew them after learning the ownership was in question. Sotheby’s isn’t charged in the case and declined to comment.
Henley bought some draft lyrics privately from Gotta Have It! for $8,500 in 2012, when he also began filing police reports, according to court filings.
Defense lawyers claim Henley found starstruck prosecutors to take up his cause instead of pursuing a civil suit himself.
The DA’s office worked closely with Henley’s legal team, and an investigator even yearned for backstage passes for an Eagles show — until a prosecutor said the idea was “completely inappropriate,” Kosinki’s lawyers said in court papers.
Prosecutors have rebuffed questions about their motivations as “a conspiracy theory rather than a legal defense.”
Last year, they wrote in court papers, “It is the defendants, not the prosecutors, who are on trial.”
California
Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’
We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.
In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”
Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.
“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.
Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies
Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.
When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”
“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”
When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”
Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.
Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.
The primary election is June 2.
No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows
A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
California
PlayOn Sports fined $1.1 million by California watchdog over student data violations
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (FOX26) — California’s privacy watchdog has ordered PlayOn Sports to pay a $1.10 million fine and change how it handles consumer data after finding the company’s practices violated state law in ways that affected students and schools in the state.
The California Privacy Protection Agency Board issued the decision following a settlement reached by CalPrivacy’s Enforcement Division.
The decision is the first by the board to address privacy violations involving students and California schools.
Schools across the country use PlayOn Sports’ GoFan platform to sell digital tickets to high school sporting events, theater performances, and homecoming and prom dances, with attendees presenting tickets at the door on their mobile phones.
Schools also use PlayOn Sports’ platforms for other sports-related activities, including attending games, streaming them online, and looking up statistics about teams and players.
In California, about 1,400 schools contract with PlayOn Sports for these services.
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GoFan is also the official ticketing platform for the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports.
According to the board’s decision, PlayOn Sports used tracking technologies to collect personal information and deliver targeted advertisements to ticketholders and others using its services.
The company allegedly required Californians to click “agree” to tracking technologies before they could use their tickets or view PlayOn Sports websites, without providing a sufficient opt-out option.
“Students trying to go to prom or a high school football game shouldn’t have to leave their privacy rights at the door,” said Michael Macko, CalPrivacy’s head of enforcement. “You couldn’t attend these events without showing your ticket, and you couldn’t show your ticket without being tracked for advertising. California’s privacy law does not work that way. Businesses must ensure they offer lawful ways for Californians to opt-out, particularly with captive audiences.”
The decision also describes students as a uniquely vulnerable population and warns that targeted advertising systems can subject students to profiling that can follow them for years, expose them to manipulative or harmful content, and develop sensitive inferences about their lives.
Instead of providing its own opt-out method, PlayOn Sports directed students and other users to opt out through the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance, which the decision said violated the company’s responsibility to provide its own way for consumers to opt out. The company also allegedly failed to recognize opt-out preference signals and did not provide Californians with sufficient notice of its privacy practices.
“We are committed to making it as easy as possible for all Californians — from high school students to older adults, and everyone in between — to make the choice of whether they want to be tracked or not,” said Tom Kemp, CalPrivacy’s executive director. “Californians can opt-out with covered businesses, and they can sign up for the newly launched DROP system to request that data brokers delete their personal information.”
Beyond the $1.10 million fine, the board’s order requires PlayOn Sports to conduct risk assessments, provide disclosures that are easy to read and understand, and implement proper opt-out methods.
The order also requires the company to comply with California’s privacy law prohibiting the selling or sharing of personal information of consumers between 13 and 16 without their affirmative opt-in consent.
California
California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly
Wednesday, March 4, 2026 4:43AM
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) — A bill that would prevent police officers from moonlighting with federal immigration enforcement agencies, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is advancing through the California State Assembly.
AB 1537 passed the State Assembly’s committee on public safety on Tuesday.
The bill also requires that officers report any offers for secondary employment related to immigration enforcement to their place of work.
Those failing to comply could face decertification as a peace officer in California.
The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, whose district includes Mar Vista, Ladera Heights, Mid-Wilshire and parts of South Los Angeles.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
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