Don Henley was requested in a New York courtroom Monday about a seamy episode from his previous: his 1980 arrest soon after authorities said they found drugs and a bare 16-calendar year-old lady struggling from an overdose at the Eagles co-founder’s Los Angeles household.
Henley was testifying at an unrelated prison demo, where a few collectibles dealers are charged with conspiring to possess and try to provide handwritten draft lyrics to “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits without the need of the ideal to do so. The guys have pleaded not guilty.
A prosecutor questioned about the singer and drummer’s November 1980 arrest early on, apparently to get in advance of protection attorneys. They previously indicated that they planned to concern the 76-yr-aged about his memory of the era and his life-style at the time.
The arrest was briefly reported on at the time, and it obtained only a passing point out throughout the recent #MeToo motion, when a lot of these types of incidents involving general public figures were being reexamined.
On Monday, Henley explained to the courtroom that he termed for a intercourse employee that night time mainly because he “wanted to escape the despair I was in” more than the breakup of the celebrity band.
“I wished to neglect about almost everything that was going on with the band, and I produced a poor conclusion which I regret to this working day. I’ve experienced to are living with it for 44 several years. I’m continue to dwelling with it nowadays, in this courtroom. Inadequate final decision,” Henley testified in a raspy drawl.
As he did in a 1991 interview with GQ magazine, Henley testified that he didn’t know the girl’s age until eventually following his arrest and that he went to bed with the female, but by no means experienced sexual intercourse with her.
“I don’t bear in mind the anatomical facts, but I know there was no intercourse,” said Henley, who stated they’d completed cocaine alongside one another and talked for many hrs about his band’s separation and her estrangement from her household.
He mentioned he named firefighters, who checked the girl’s well being, discovered her to be Ok and left, with him promising to get care of her. The paramedics, who discovered her in the nude, referred to as law enforcement, authorities mentioned at the time.
Henley claimed Monday that she recovered and was planning to go away with a close friend she’d experienced him phone, when law enforcement arrived hours afterwards.
At the time, authorities said they found cocaine, quaaludes and cannabis at his Los Angeles residence.
Henley pleaded no contest in 1981 to a misdemeanor cost of contributing to the delinquency of a insignificant. He was sentenced to probation and a $2,500 wonderful, and he requested a drug training application to get some possession costs dismissed.
Henley was asked about the incident on Monday before he gave the court his model of how handwritten internet pages from the advancement of the band’s blockbuster 1976 album built their way from his Southern California barn to New York auctions a long time later.
