News 12 at 6 o'clock; March 6, 2009

AIKEN, S.C. --- The James Brown saga continues and it seems to be anything but settled. We have exclusive information on James Brown II DNA test. We just completed 3 days of court hearings and there are plenty more to come.

DNA tests, assets, $100 million and now the settling side is worried about the two trustees selling the James Brown Estate before the next court hearing. A wild three days in court and we've got your recap.

Day after day, after day more questions in the courtroom than answers at the latest hearings. No one knows exactly how much his estate is really worth, but some big numbers were thrown around in the courtroom.

The trustees estimating the estate is worth between $86-100 million. Meanwhile, the settling side says it may be half of the $65 million they were told his estate was worth in October of 2007.

Then, there is James Brown II. The question is whether he is the son of James Brown and if his mom, Tommie Rae, is really the widow of James Brown?

"The test results are legitimate," says his attorney Peter Shahid. "There's no question about the test results."

News 12 is exclusively reporting the independent DNA test of Brown II has a note at the end saying, "the samples were not collected according to ABBA guidelines and the lab can not verify the origin of the DNA sample."

"The lab is receiving what we gave them and that's what they're talking about," says Peter.

Meanwhile, the two in charge of the trust now -- Adele Pope and Robert Buchanan -- both say the settlement, as it is written now, is no good.

"The (assets) are going to people Mr. Brown did not intend for them to go to," says Buchanan.

"We are here to defend the estate plan of James Brown to try to carry out what he intended to do," says Pope.

"All we can do is try to get them to go away and put a competent fiduciary, professional fiduciary in there and try to salvage this mess," says Robert Rosen, attorney for Tommie Rae.
All this, while the lawyers argue, money talk tensions grow and the end of this saga seems no where in sight.

"It's been a long process and we'd like to see peace," says Deanna Brown.

Of course, the settlement would mean 50% of James Brown money and assets would go to the charitable trust for needy and poor kids of South Carolina and Georgia, 25% to Tommie Rae and 25% to be split amongst the 6 Brown children.

Judge Jack Early did rule today saying that if any offer is made on the estate and a sale is imminent, everyone must be in court before it's final.

Parties expect to be back in court later this month for many days in a row to try to settle this. Judge Early says everyone has "got to move this thing along."