Criminal Charges Against Ray Charles’ Engineer Tossed

A Los Angeles judge threw out criminal charges Thursday against Ray Charles’ longtime recording engineer, saying there was no evidence that he intentionally withheld the late entertainer’s master recordings from his estate.

Superior Court Judge Samuel Mayerson issued his ruling after a 1 1/2 -day preliminary hearing, held to determine whether Terry Howard, 48, should stand trial. Howard, who had been charged with two counts of grand theft and one of receiving stolen property, said after the hearing that the case had soured his career at its peak.

“It took the highest point of my life, all the accolades, and flushed them all down the drain,” he said in a phone interview.

Howard’s attorney, Steve Cron, said he did not fault prosecutors, but rather officials at Ray Charles Enterprises, who he said could have cleared up the matter of the missing masters with “a couple of phone calls,” instead of involving the authorities.

“The case was filed in good faith, but as the evidence developed, it became more and more clear this wasn’t a crime but, at best, negligent oversight by Terry Howard,” Cron said.

In a statement, Jerry Digney, a spokesman for Ray Charles Enterprises, said, “Our only objective was to retrieve the property of Ray Charles, and we were never interested in persecuting or prosecuting anyone.”

Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said prosecutors filed the case “based on the evidence they had at the time.” She added that the office would review whether to refile.

Howard worked with Charles more than two decades on recordings including “Genius Loves Company,” the entertainer’s final album, which earned three Grammy Awards.

Cron said the case started when somebody at Ray Charles Enterprises found empty tape boxes and jumped to the conclusion that Howard must have stolen or intentionally kept the contents without permission.

Ray Charles Enterprises, which had no system to catalog and track recordings at the entertainer’s studios, alerted police, who, in a February search, seized 300 recordings, including master tapes and individual tracks, from Howard’s home and office, Cron said.

Most of the items were Howard’s personal property, the attorney said, adding that about 87 were Charles’ materials.

Howard said he and the performer routinely passed recordings back and forth. The sound engineer said he had an understanding with Charles that he should keep backups of all the musician’s recordings.

“It’s a common practice of engineers and producers to keep backups of artists’ materials,” Howard said. “If something happens to the original, you want to have safety copies.”

Howard said he believes that he was targeted by Ray Charles Enterprises out of jealousy over his close relationship with the late entertainer and that he has paid a dear price.

“I know that the man who adored me, the man who was a father to me, would have never let this happen if he were alive,” Howard said.