Robberies and Thefts

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    Inger McCabe Elliott, Who Famously Became Con Man’s Victim, Dies at 90

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    She was a successful designer. But she was probably best known for being duped in a scheme that inspired the play “Six Degrees of Separation.”Inger McCabe Elliott, a photographer and designer who, with her husband, was conned at her home in Manhattan by a slick-talking 19-year-old purporting to be Sidney Poitier’s son — an incident that helped inspire John Guare to write his celebrated play “Six Degrees of Separation” — died on Jan. 29 at her home in Manhattan. She was 90.Her son, Alec McCabe, confirmed the death.It was a bizarre New York tale.In early October 1983, Mrs. Elliott and her husband, Osborn Elliott, a former top editor of Newsweek who at the time was the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, got a call from a young man who introduced himself as David Poitier.He said that he was a friend of Mrs. Elliott’s daughter Kari McCabe, and that muggers had stolen his money and a term paper he had written about the criminal justice system. He needed a place to stay, he said, until his father arrived in Manhattan the next day to direct scenes for the film version of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls.” (Mr. Poitier had six daughters but no sons, and he had no involvement in “Dreamgirls.”)Charmed, the Elliotts invited the young man — his real name was David Hampton, they later learned — to spend the night at their East Side apartment and gave him $50 and some clothes. He asked Mrs. Elliott to wake him early the next morning so that he could go jogging.David Hampton, the man who had masqueraded as Sidney Poitier’s son, in 1990 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center after the opening of the John Guare play based on his impersonation. William E. Sauro/The New York TimesThe Elliotts were unable to reach Kari McCabe that night to confirm Mr. Hampton’s claim that they were friends. (She had no idea who he was, they later found out.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Just How Rich Were the McCallisters in ‘Home Alone’?

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      Fans have been debating the McCallister family’s wealth for years. We asked the Federal Reserve for answers.The battle in “Home Alone” between 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) and two burglars known as the Wet Bandits has unfolded on screens around the world every Christmas since the film premiered in 1990.And each year, for some viewers, the McCallisters’ grand home and lifestyle inspires its own tradition: wondering just how rich this family was.The New York Times turned to economists and people involved with the film to find the answer.The McCallisters are the 1 Percent.The McCallister family home is a real house in Winnetka, Ill., a wealthy suburb of Chicago.Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune va Getty ImagesEarly in the film, one of the burglars, Harry (Joe Pesci), tells his fellow Wet Bandit, Marv (Daniel Stern), that the McCallister home is their top target in a wealthy neighborhood.“That’s the one, Marv, that’s the silver tuna,” Harry says, before speculating that the house contains a lot of “top-flight goods,” including VCRs, stereos, very fine jewelry and “odd marketable securities.”The home is the best clue as to how much money the McCallisters have.The silver tuna, or its exterior anyway, is a real-world house at 671 Lincoln Avenue in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the United States, according to Realtor.com. It appears to have enough space for Kevin and his four siblings to each have their own rooms, but also can accommodate an army of visitors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Vincent Asaro, Mobster Acquitted in Lufthansa Heist, Dies at 86

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      In a stunning verdict, he was found not guilty of participating in the storied 1978 theft, retold in the film “Goodfellas.” Then he went to prison over a road rage incident.Vincent Asaro, a career mobster who was found not guilty of murder and of helping to organize the staggering $6 million Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy Airport — one of the biggest cash heists in American history — only to be sentenced to prison when he was 82 over road-rage revenge, died on Sunday in Queens. He was 86.His death was confirmed by Gerald McMahon, a lawyer who successfully represented him in the Lufthansa case. No cause was given.The brazen theft in 1978 of $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels from a vault at a Lufthansa hangar at Kennedy Airport figured prominently in the book “Wiseguy” (1985) by Nicholas Pileggi and the Martin Scorsese film “Goodfellas” (1990).The authorities had suspected the Mafia’s involvement, but the case remained unsolved and the investigation closed until Mr. Asaro was arrested in 2014, linking him and the Bonanno crime family to the robbery.He was also accused of using a dog chain in 1969 to strangle Paul Katz, the owner of a warehouse where Mr. Asaro and James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke, who was suspected of masterminding the Lufthansa theft (and who was portrayed by Robert DeNiro in “Goodfellas”), stored their stolen loot. Mr. Asaro and Mr. Burke had believed that Mr. Katz was an informer after the warehouse was raided by the police.The stolen van that authorities believed was used in the Lufthansa robbery at John F. Kennedy Airport in December 1978.Ken Murray/Associated PressThe indictment implicated Mr. Asaro in a sweeping conspiracy in which he was also accused of robbing FedEx (then Federal Express) of $1.25 million of gold salts, which can be used in medicinal treatments; bullying his way into the pornography business; and seeking, unsuccessfully, to bump off a cousin who had testified about an insurance scam.Mr. Asaro’s 2015 trial was a sensation.Though the robbery had taken place more than three decades earlier, it had been immortalized in the book and film, and even for younger New Yorkers it felt like a coda to the “Godfather” era.Moreover, the key witness against Mr. Asaro was another cousin, Gaspare Valenti, who had been a government informant since 2008 and had secretly recorded Mr. Asaro from 2010 to 2013.Mr. Valenti’s testimony on the stand was a jaw-dropping breach of the Mafia’s code of silence.It also revealed the devolution of a ruthless mobster who in his day job could suggest to customers which fences to buy from his store in Ozone Park, Queens, while in his other life he could impatiently advise a younger mob associate who had asked him how best to collect a debt: “Stab him today.”Mr. Asaro’s acquittal in 2015 was so stunning — not only to the prosecution, but to Mr. Asaro himself — that as he left the courthouse and got into a car, he giddily joked, “Don’t let them see the body in the trunk.”A jubilant Mr. Asaro leaving court in Brooklyn in 2015 after he was acquitted. As he got into a car, he giddily joked: “Don’t let them see the body in the trunk.”Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesIronically, the automobile reference returned to haunt him two years later. He was accused of recruiting a mob associate, who in turn recruited John J. Gotti, the grandson of the former Gambino family boss, to torch the car of a motorist who had cut off Mr. Asaro at a traffic light.The driver was pursued at high speed by Mr. Asaro to no avail. The associate used law enforcement sources to track the license plate, after which Mr. Gotti and two other men located the car in Broad Channel, Queens, doused it with gasoline and set it ablaze. An off-duty police officer parked nearby witnessed the auto-da-fe and pursued the arsonists, but they sped away in a Jaguar.Surprisingly, after a lifetime of denying culpability in crime, Mr. Asaro not only pleaded guilty but also apologized for what he acknowledged was “a stupid thing I did.”He could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. The prosecution asked for 15, pointing out that although he had “participated in racketeering, murder, robbery, extortion, loan-sharking, gambling and other illegal conduct, he has served less than eight years in jail.”In December 2017, U.S. District Judge Allyne Ross ordered him to serve eight years — which, at 80, Mr. Asaro described as “a death sentence” — and to pay $21,276 in restitution to the owner of the car.“If he had not aged out of a life of crime at the age of 77,” Judge Ross said, referring to his age during the opening phases of the Lufthansa trial, over which she presided, “I have little hope that he will do so.”Two years after the Lufthansa trial, Mr. Asaro was sentenced to eight years in prison over a road rage incident, in which he ordered an associate to torch the car of a motorist who had cut him off at a traffic light.Justin Lane/European Pressphoto AgencyVincent A. Asaro was born on July 10, 1937, in Queens to Joseph and Victoria Asaro, who separated when he was a teenager. His uncle, Michael Zaffarano, owned buildings housing adult theaters, distributed pornography and worked as a bodyguard for Joseph Bonanno, who ran his eponymous crime family for nearly four decades.In 1957, Mr. Asaro married Theresa Myler; they divorced in 2005.Mr. Asaro’s survivors include his son, Jerome. He was arrested with his father in 2014, pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment.Mr. Asaro racked up numerous charges and convictions over the course of his life. Among them, he was convicted in federal court in 1970 and 1972 for the theft of an interstate shipment and burglary of a post office. In 1998, he was sentenced in state court in New York to four to 12 years in prison for enterprise corruption and criminal possession of stolen property.Three decades after the notorious Lufthansa heist, the beggarly but still choleric gangster had, according to prosecutors, squandered his $500,000 share of the loot on gambling and depleted whatever he had collected from his unforgiving manner of pursuing delinquent borrowers. He had hocked his jewelry and was seen shopping at a Waldbaum’s supermarket for orzo and lentils.According to a conversation recorded by Mr. Valenti that was played in court in 2015, he was even unwelcome at the local social club where he had celebrated the heist. “People hate me in there,” Mr. Asaro said. “I don’t pay my dues.”Even his estranged son, whom he had initiated into the Mafia and had by then outranked him, rebuffed him when he desperately sought to borrow money, according to another recording.Mr. Asaro had a stroke during his imprisonment for ordering the arson, which left him partly paralyzed. In 2020, he was granted a compassionate release from the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., because of his age and vulnerability to Covid-19.“He obviously had nine lives,” Mr. McMahon said after Mr. Asaro’s death. “But this must have been the tenth.”Joseph Goldstein More

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      in Theater

      Hundreds of Shadow Puppets Were Stolen. A Bystander Helped Crack the Case.

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      Many of the puppets were still missing, however, after the theft of a U-haul truck in San Francisco holding props for the critically acclaimed Persian epic “Song of the North.” It was unclear if the show would go on.Inside the U-Haul were nearly 500 handmade shadow puppets and dozens of masks, costumes and backdrops — the culmination of three years of painstaking labor, which, on Sunday evening, came to life in a balletic performance before a crowd of hundreds at a theater in San Francisco.On Monday morning, the puppeteers awoke to find the truck gone.At first, they hoped the truck, parked at a Comfort Inn in the city’s northeast, had been mistakenly towed, said Hamid Rahmanian, 55, an Iranian American artist and the creator of the show “Song of the North,” an adaptation of the Persian poet Ferdowsi’s 10th-century epic “Shahnameh” that combines shadow puppetry, animation and music.But when hotel employees reviewed the security camera footage, it quickly became clear that the truck had been stolen. “My face dropped — my hands became cold,” Rahmanian said. Then, more than 48 hours later, on Wednesday morning, he received a call: A resident had spotted the truck in the city’s west, and notified the police. Rahmanian rushed to the scene to find years of careful work strewn about the truck in a “shamble.”The thieves appeared to have rifled through the boxes inside the truck, throwing some things away, and destroying others, he said, noting that while the full scale of the damage was unclear, at least 200 puppets were missing, and all of the costumes were gone.The next stop on the show’s global tour was Seattle, where a performance was scheduled for Friday. It was unclear whether the show would go on.The San Francisco Police Department said that it had received a call Wednesday morning from a resident in Richmond, northeast of San Francisco, about a “possible recovered stolen vehicle.”The police confirmed it was the same U-Haul and were investigating. No arrests had been made. The department did not offer more information about the contents of the security camera footage.Rahmanian, who moved from Iran to New York three decades ago to pursue a career in graphic design, said he had created “Song of the North” over several years in an endeavor to adapt the “Shahnameh,” or “Book of Kings,” for a Western audience. “There is a misrepresentation of Iranian culture, and everything is very much politicized,” he said. “Iran is like a symphony. But we only hear one note.”His work has garnered glowing reviews and audiences in places including China, Poland and Iowa. The puppet performances can take years to lay out in storyboards and to design and choreograph, Rahmanian said, noting that “Song of the North” involves 352 frames and an ensemble of nine people whose actions must be precise to the inch. For the 83-minute duration of the show, he added, “they work like a Swiss watch.”The laborious, costly work has not been very lucrative, he said, noting that he preferred to keep ticket prices affordable so that families could attend the shows. “There is no sane person” who would do this kind of work, he said. “The math doesn’t work.” In part, that is why he and his team decided to rent their own U-Haul instead of hiring outside contractors, he added, saying, “We thought we’re going to save a little bit of money.”The puppets don’t “have any value for these thieves,” their creator, Hamid Rahmanian, said through tears.Richard Termine Just after 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, he and his team loaded their wares into the truck, which was parked near the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, where Sunday’s show was held. They drove it less than a mile to the Comfort Inn, where they arrived at 9:13 p.m., Rahmanian said, noting he had felt anxious, given San Francisco’s reputation for crime, but told himself it was going to be fine in a parking lot.The next morning, the truck had disappeared.U-Haul did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday evening, but Rahmanian said that after the truck was stolen, the company had told him that it was not fitted with a GPS device and that it could not be located. Choice Hotels, which manages the Comfort Inn, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Abbas Milani, a professor of Iranian studies at Stanford University, said in an email that Rahmanian’s work offered an “antidote to the dangerous delusions of stereotypes” through an empathetic portrayal of Iranian culture. Rahmanian’s adaptations of the Shanameh, he added, “offered a rich tapestry of the joyous, even epicurean culture of Iran.”Rahmanian said he was particularly buoyed on Sunday evening, as the audience lingered in the lobby to discuss the show — which begins with a warrior imploring two armies to stop fighting. Two of the enemies then fall in love, he said, noting that “Song of the North” was ultimately a tale of forgiveness.It felt “cosmic,” he added, to wake up the next morning to find that even art didn’t appear to be safe from the ugliness of the world. “It doesn’t have any value for these thieves,” he said through tears on Tuesday evening, before the truck was located. “They’re going to open it up and realize, oh my god, it’s just puppets.”On Tuesday, Rahmanian said he would not press charges against those who stole the truck. He added, “I forgive you.” More

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      Forests, Band from Singapore, Played On After U.S. Robbery

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      Forests, a band from Singapore, ended its tour in New York in high spirits, two weeks after being robbed in California.The band, Forests, did not miss a show.ForestsAn international rock band’s first U.S. tour is a moment to be celebrated, a sign that years of hard work have paid off. But just a few days into their American debut, the members of Forests, an emo rock band from Singapore, endured another rite of passage for some musicians traveling the United States when they stopped for the night at a California hotel.When they returned to their rental van a few hours later, they realized they’d been robbed.“In Singapore I kind of made a joke about it, like, oh, you know, your band is only legit if your stuff got stolen,” said Darell Laser, 36, the bassist. “Then it really happened.”Forests and the Oklahoma band they were touring with, Ben Quad, are hardly the first musicians to be robbed while on tour in America. (In 1999, Sonic Youth famously lost an entire truck’s worth of gear to a thief, also in California.) But the experience was still a shock for a band from a country as safe as Singapore.“It was the worst luck ever,” said Chris Martinez, 29, a Forests fan from San Diego who discovered the band years ago on a business trip to Singapore.The robbery prompted an outpouring of concern from both bands’ fans, and more than $9,000 in donations allowed them to buy replacement instruments. They did not miss a show, and they ended their tour in high spirits with a sold-out concert at a bar in Queens on Tuesday.“They seem to have moved past it,” said Mr. Martinez, who donated $200 to the bands’ crowdfunding campaign after learning of the robbery. “Keeping a positive attitude and trying not to let it bring them down.”Forests and Ben Quad had some instruments, along with other goods, stolen from their parked rental van while they were sleeping in a hotel after a show. ForestsThe May 1 robbery made for a surreal early leg of a cross-country tour — entitled “Get in losers, we’re going to Walmart” — that Forests had spent months planning and years looking forward to. It happened a few days after their tour began in Seattle and a few hours after their gig in Oakland.When the tired musicians from the two bands straggled into a Hampton Inn in Hayward, Calif., at about 1:30 a.m., they left their gear in the 15-passenger rental van they were sharing for the tour. They parked next to a security camera as a precaution, but it didn’t help: When they returned to the parking lot after 11 a.m., they noticed that some of their guitars, a bass, pedals, clothing and a box with cash from merchandise sales had been stolen.The theft was the latest in an area of California where property crimes like shoplifting and car break-ins are on the rise. The hotel management told the bands that its security footage did not show a theft. A location tag on one instrument appeared to show that the stolen gear had been taken to an Oakland apartment building, but the police said there was no easy way to get it back.“The cops told us, ‘Hey, there’s nothing we can do unless it ends up in a pawnshop,’” said Edgar Viveros, 27, Ben Quad’s lead guitarist. The pawnshops they called said that it had not.Instead of canceling the tour, the bands decided to play on with borrowed gear. They also set up a crowdfunding page and were surprised to see how quickly donations rolled in — $6,000 in about four hours.The robbery was “kinda heartbreaking,” Imre Griga, 23, a fan in Columbia, Mo., who attended three of the bands’ tour dates this month, said in an email. “I think the entire community felt Forests deserved much better for their first tour in America.”Within a few days, members of both bands were playing with new instruments. They went a little longer without the pedal board that Ben Quad typically uses to play samples, like the theme from an “Austin Powers” movie, between sets. But a replacement for that, too, was eventually found.Forests first played with borrowed instruments after the theft, then bought replacements after fans donated more than $9,000.ForestsBack home in Singapore, the story of the robbery, and the fan support, made headlines. Some readers commented about their own experiences of getting robbed in the United States. Others wondered how the three members of Forests, who all have day jobs and tour on their vacations, could have been so naïve.For Forests, it was not their first international tour: They have performed across the Asia-Pacific region over the years. But on their first tour of America, they loved watching the landscape — deserts, trees, snowy mountains — whip past the van’s windows.They also kept a list of “crazy things” they had seen, like people fighting in convenience stores, or the woman in Seattle who threw her luggage down three flights of stairs in a subway station. The band’s drummer, Niki Koh, 31, said he particularly enjoyed visiting a store that sold guns, knives and hunting gear — “ everything that we won’t find in Singapore.”“It’s culture shock,” he said, speaking in a video interview from Kansas City. “But at the same time, it’s very interesting.” More

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      Man Is Sentenced to 21 Years in Shooting of Lady Gaga’s Dog Walker

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      Two of the singer’s French bulldogs were stolen during the attack in Hollywood last year, during which her dog walker was shot in the chest, the police said.A man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker during a violent robbery last year during which two of the singer’s French bulldogs were stolen was sentenced on Monday to 21 years in prison, prosecutors said.The man, James Howard Jackson, reached a deal with prosecutors under which he pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder and admitted to inflicting great bodily injury and to “a prior strike,” according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.Mr. Jackson, 20, was immediately sentenced to 21 years in state prison, the district attorney’s office said. “The plea agreement holds Mr. Jackson accountable for perpetrating a coldhearted, violent act and provides justice for our victim,” the office said in a statement.Ryan Fischer, the dog walker who was shot in the chest during the attack on Feb. 24, 2021, in Hollywood, spoke directly to Mr. Jackson in court shortly before Mr. Jackson entered his plea, Rolling Stone reported.“You shot me and left me to die, and both of our lives have changed forever,” Mr. Fischer said, according to Rolling Stone. He added that the shooting led to “lung collapse after lung collapse,” as well as the loss of his career and friendships.Still, Mr. Fischer told Mr. Jackson, according to Rolling Stone: “I do forgive you. With the attack, you completely altered my life. I know I can’t completely move on from the night you shot me until I said those words to you.”It was not immediately clear who Mr. Jackson’s lawyer was.Mr. Jackson was accused of participating in the robbery along with two others, Jaylin White and Lafayette Whaley, who were also charged in the case last year.The area where Lady Gaga’s dog walker was shot and two of her French bulldogs were stolen in Los Angeles last February.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressThe police had said that the robbers, who grabbed the dogs and fled in a car after the shooting, were not targeting the French bulldogs because they belonged to Lady Gaga.Evidence instead suggested that the men knew that the breed was valuable, according to the police. Lady Gaga had offered a $500,000 reward for the safe return of the dogs, which are named Koji and Gustav.Mr. Fischer, who was critically wounded in the shooting, had recalled lying in a pool of blood and holding one of Lady Gaga’s dogs that had not been stolen in the attack.In August, Jaylin White and Mr. Whaley each pleaded no contest to one count of second-degree robbery, the district attorney’s office said. Mr. White was sentenced to four years in state prison, and Mr. Whaley was sentenced to six years in state prison, the office said.The police said last year that two others — Harold White and Jennifer McBride — had been charged with being accessories after the shooting. Ms. McBride reported that she had found the dogs and had responded to a reward email to return them, the police said.Ms. McBride ultimately took the dogs to a Los Angeles police station, the police said. The police said that they later discovered that Ms. McBride had a relationship with one of the men who had been arrested.According to the district attorney’s office, Harold White pleaded no contest on Monday to one count of being a former convict in possession of a gun. He is scheduled to be sentenced next year, the office said. Ms. McBride’s case is continuing, the office said. More

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      Rare-Book Dealer Charged After Pilfered Eagles Lyrics Come to Light

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      Glenn Horowitz and two other men are accused of conspiring to sell Don Henley’s notes, including the words to “Hotel California.”In the late 1970s, as Southern California’s Eagles sailed into rock superstardom, one of the band’s main songwriters generated reams of handwritten lyrics and notes — among them, the words to such FM-radio staples as “Hotel California.”And then, the papers vanished.Nearly five decades later, Glenn Horowitz, a New York rare-book dealer, and two other men were charged on Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan with conspiring to sell about 100 pages of the stolen notes written by the songwriter, Don Henley, lying to law enforcement authorities and fabricating stories about the provenance of the papers, which are valued at around $1 million.“This action exposes the truth about music memorabilia sales of highly personal, stolen items hidden behind a facade of legitimacy,” Irving Azoff, Mr. Henley’s manager, said. “No one has the right to sell illegally obtained property or profit from the outright theft of irreplaceable pieces of musical history.”Those charged include Mr. Horowitz, 66, who helped create a frothy market in writers’ archives, curating filing cabinets’ worth of manuscripts, drafts, letters and ephemera into a coherent and sellable whole. He placed the papers of Norman Mailer, Gabriel García Márquez, Tom Wolfe, Alice Walker and others in leading university libraries, and brokered major deals with musicians: In 2016, he sold Bob Dylan’s vast archive to two institutions in Oklahoma for a sum estimated to be as high as $20 million.Lawyers for Mr. Horowitz and the other defendants, Craig Inciardi, 58, and Edward Kosinski, 59, denied the charges.“The D.A.’s office alleges criminality where none exists and unfairly tarnishes the reputations of well-respected professionals,” the lawyers said in a statement. “These men are innocent.”A lawyer for Mr. Inciardi added that the men had turned themselves in and had been released on their own recognizance.The indictment is a stunning turn for Mr. Horowitz, a mainstay of New York City’s rare book and manuscript market who is known for mixing a keen business sense with deep literary learning and a showman’s flair.A visit to his Midtown Manhattan office with its terrace overlooking the Museum of Modern Art sculpture garden might offer a glimpse of a choice historical letter or a jaw-dropping literary artifact — accompanied by a comment that the viewing was off the record.“As Glenn himself says, he’s a terrific combination of a scholar and a grifter,” Rick Gekoski, a book dealer in London who regularly did business with Horowitz, told The New York Times in 2007.The notes at the heart of the case announced on Tuesday are the lyrical spine of what would become one of the most recognizable, ubiquitous albums of the 1970s. The Eagles made music that drew on blues and country rock but that was suffused with the particular malaise of Southern California in its post-hippie, pre-punk period.Half a century since its 1976 release, the “Hotel California” album and Mr. Henley’s gnomic musings — “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” — have fueled unending speculation among fans about the lyrics’ meaning. The band’s continuous world tour, on which it plays the album front to back with a full orchestra, has filled arenas for more than two years.Mr. Horowitz obtained Mr. Henley’s notes in 2005, according to a news release from Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney. The manuscripts were originally stolen from the songwriter in the late 1970s by a writer working on a book about the band, the release said. The notes include handwritten lyrics to “Hotel California,” the albums’s title track.Mr. Henley became aware of the notes’ reappearance when Mr. Horowitz sold them to Mr. Inciardi and Mr. Kosinski, fellow collectors who tried to market them further. According to the district attorney’s office, Mr. Henley filed police reports and told the collectors the notes were stolen.“Rather than making any effort to ensure they actually had rightful ownership, the defendants responded by engaging in a yearslong campaign to prevent Henley from recovering the manuscripts,” the district attorney’s release said.The men sought to launder the notes through Sotheby’s auction houses and engaged in a five-year effort to hide where the documents had come from, the district attorney’s office said. Mr. Horowitz later tried to leverage the 2016 death of Glenn Frey, the Eagles’ other frontman, as possible cover, suggesting that Mr. Frey was the initial source for the papers, according to the news release.Mr. Frey “alas, is dead, and identifying him as the source would make this go away once and for all,” Mr. Horowitz said in a fabricated statement of provenance after the notes were seized by investigators from a Sotheby’s warehouse, the district attorney’s office said.Mr. Horowitz was charged with conspiracy, attempted criminal possession of stolen property and hindering prosecution. Mr. Inciardi and Mr. Kosinski were charged with possessing stolen property and conspiracy.Alex Traub More

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      in Television

      ‘Lupin,’ Netflix’s French Heist Drama, Is the Victim of a Theft

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      Equipment valued at more than $300,000 was stolen from the set of the hit series during filming in a Paris suburb last week.“Lupin,” the hit French heist drama, was itself at the center of a heist last week when about 20 young men wearing balaclavas stole equipment valued at more than $300,000 from the set during filming in a Paris suburb, a Netflix spokeswoman said.The theft, which was reported by the international news service Agence France-Presse and the French newspaper Le Parisien, came just over a week after more than 200 antique props valued at more than $200,000 were stolen from vehicles during the filming of the fifth season of “The Crown” in England, according to the South Yorkshire Police and Netflix.Netflix said in a statement on Thursday that there was an “incident” during the filming of the third season of “Lupin” on Feb. 25.“Our cast and crew are safe and there were no injuries,” the statement said. “We have now resumed filming.”A Netflix spokeswoman said that equipment and other items worth about 300,000 euros, or $332,000, were stolen by men who showed up on the set and “attacked” with fireworks. Filming was paused for an afternoon, and the local police were investigating, she said.“Lupin” became a global phenomenon upon its release in January 2021 and is among Netflix’s most streamed non-English-language original shows. Omar Sy plays Assane Diop, a debonair Parisian and the son of a Senegalese immigrant who idolizes Arsène Lupin, the “gentleman thief” and main character in a collection of stories by the French writer Maurice Leblanc starting in 1905.A spokesman for the police in Nanterre, the suburb outside Paris where the filming was taking place, said he could not comment on the case.In an earlier statement about the theft from “The Crown,” Netflix said that it hoped the items stolen from the set in Doncaster, in northern England, would be found and returned. The stolen items included a replica of a Fabergé egg, several sets of silver and gold candelabra, the face of a William IV grandfather clock, a 10-piece silver dressing-table set and crystal glassware, according to a report in the Antiques Trade Gazette.“The items stolen are not necessarily in the best condition and therefore of limited value for resale,” Alison Harvey, the set decorator for the fifth season of “The Crown,” told the Antiques Trade Gazette. “However, they are valuable as pieces to the U.K. film industry.”The South Yorkshire police said they had received a report of a theft in the late afternoon on Feb. 16. Three vehicles containing props had been “broken into” and “a number of items” were taken, they said. “Officers investigated the incident but all existing lines of inquiry have now been exhausted,” the police said in a brief statement.Matt Stevens More

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      in Television

      ‘The Crown’ Jewels, and Other Props, Reported Stolen Amid Filming

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      More than 200 props valued at roughly $200,000, including antiques, a replica of a Fabergé egg, silver and gold candelabra and part of a grandfather clock, were reportedly stolen.It was not quite a royal heist.More than 200 antique props used during the filming of the fifth season of “The Crown” were stolen from vehicles last week in Doncaster, in northern England, according to the South Yorkshire Police and Netflix.The props are collectively valued at roughly $200,000, and include a replica of a Fabergé egg, several sets of silver and gold candelabra, a clock face of a William IV grandfather clock, a 10-piece silver dressing table set and crystal glassware and decanters, according to a report in the Antiques Trade Gazette.“The items stolen are not necessarily in the best condition and therefore of limited value for resale,” Alison Harvey, the series set decorator for the fifth season of “The Crown,” told the publication. “However, they are valuable as pieces to the U.K. film industry.”In a statement, Netflix, which streams the hit drama about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, confirmed that the antiques had been stolen and expressed hope that they would be found and returned.“Replacements will be sourced,” the company said, adding that “there is no expectation that filming will be held up.”The South Yorkshire Police said that they had received a report of a theft in the late afternoon on Feb. 16. Three vehicles containing props had been “broken into” and “a number of items” were taken, the authorities said.“Officers investigated the incident but all existing lines of inquiry have now been exhausted,” the police said in a brief statement.“The Crown” completed its fourth season in the fall of 2020 and won the prize for best drama at the 73rd Emmy Awards in 2021. Netflix has said the show will run a total of six seasons. It regularly recasts the roles of the central royals, and Netflix has said Imelda Staunton will play Queen Elizabeth II, Jonathan Pryce will play Prince Philip and Lesley Manville will play Princess Margaret in the coming seasons. More