By Sue Summer

For The Newberry Observer

NEWBERRY — S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson has been ordered to pay legal fees of $39,000 in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit related to public documents in the James Brown estate.

The FOIA lawsuit was filed in January 2012 by this reporter and resulted in the release of almost 100 pages of public documents in October 2014.

Newberry attorney Tom Pope and Columbia attorney Jay Bender fought for the release of the documents for almost three years.

The AG disputed the award of fees and requested that Pope be paid nothing, but if fees were to be awarded, he argued for $6,000.

Pope requested additional fees, but Newberry Judge Eugene C. Griffith did not require the AG to pay for legal work related to the First Amendment, the Shield Law, and the fight to prevent private parties from intervening in the FOIA lawsuit.

Bender, attorney for the South Carolina Press Association, did not request fees but argued for the awarding of Pope’s fees.

Also at the hearing related to fees, a request was heard for the AG to produce the at-death appraisal of James Brown’s music empire. An email released recently under another FOIA request suggested that the appraisal had been “used” by the AG’s office, making it subject to FOIA.

The judge has not yet ruled on that request.