Eagles singer Don Henley has filed a lawsuit over the return of handwritten lyrics to “Hotel California.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Eagles singer Don Henley filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday seeking to regain his rights to his music. Handwritten notes and lyrics From the band’s album “Hotel California”.

The civil complaint filed in Manhattan federal court comes after prosecutors in March abruptly dropped criminal charges mid-trial against three antiquities experts accused of plotting to sell the documents.

The Eagles co-founder confirmed the pages were stolen and vowed to pursue a lawsuit when the criminal case against rare book dealer Glenn Hurwitz, former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia dealer Edward Kosinski was dropped.

“Hotel California”, released by the Eagles in 1977, is Third biggest selling album Of all time in the United States

“These 100 pages of personal lyrics are owned by Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized the defendants or anyone else to promote them for profit,” Henley’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said in an emailed statement Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages are still in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday.

Kosinski and Inciardi’s lawyers dismissed the legal action as baseless, noting that the criminal case was dropped after it emerged that Henley had misled prosecutors by withholding critical information.

“Don Henley is desperate to rewrite history. We look forward to filing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and abuse of the justice system,” Kosinski’s attorney, Sean Crowley, said in an emailed statement.

Inciardi’s attorney, Stacey Richman, said in a separate statement that the lawsuit attempts to “bully” and “perpetuate a false narrative.”

An attorney for Horowitz, who is not being named as a defendant because he does not claim ownership of the materials, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

During the trial, the men’s lawyers said Henley gave lyric pages decades ago to a writer who had worked on a song. An unpublished biography of the Eagles Horowitz then sold the handwritten pages, which he in turn sold to Inchardi and Kosinski, who began offering some of the pages for auction in 2012.

The criminal case was abruptly dropped after prosecutors agreed that defense attorneys had been surprised by some 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley, his attorneys and his associates.

Prosecutors and the defense said they received the materials only after Henley and his lawyers made a last-minute decision to waive attorney-client privilege to protect legal discussions.

Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the non-jury trial that began in late February, said witnesses and their attorneys used attorney-client privilege “to conceal information they believed might be damaging” and that prosecutors “appeared to have been manipulated.”

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Associated Press correspondent Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow Philippe Marcelo at Twitter.com/philmarcelo.