By Sue Summer

For The Newberry Observer

The 2014 accounting for James Brown’s estate shows that current trustee Russell Bauknight and his attorneys were paid almost $2 million of $2.9 million in receipts during the year.

The accounting, filed in August 2015, showed a beginning balance of $469,870 and an ending balance of $712,643, with receipts of $2.9 million and disbursements of $2.6 million.

Of the $2.6 million, Bauknight’s accounting firm and his legal teams, all of Columbia, were paid: Bauknight Pietras and Stormer, $165,000; Nexsen Pruet, $900,000; Sojourner Caughman & Thomas, $660,000; Sweeny Wingate & Barrow, $51,105.

Most of the money received in 2014 came from James Brown LLC, which transferred about $2.76 million into the estate. On the accounting, this LLC continues to be listed among “other assets” reported at a total value of $1 (one dollar).

It is customary to use $1 as a place-holder for values when an estate is opened, until an appraisal is completed. An appraisal of Brown’s music empire was completed in 2010, but it has been the subject of controversy.

Bauknight filed documents with the IRS that claimed the at-death value of Brown’s music empire, including rights to his image and over 850 songs, was $4.7 million. Previous trustees set the value at $80-$100 million, and in 2006, the year of Brown’s death, the Royal Bank of Scotland prepared loan documents for $42 million on the royalties alone.

In an email released in June 2015 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), one of Bauknight’s attorneys wrote to the South Carolina Attorney General and others in December of 2010: “I propose that after the appraisal is accepted by the IRS for tax purposes…we file an amended appraisal with the probate court…”

Bauknight has refused to release the $4.7 million appraisal or documents to support it.

The Attorney General (AG) was also asked to release the appraisal and supporting documents under the FOIA, but he claimed not to have possession of them. The AG has claimed he relied on Bauknight’s appraisal without having seen it when he asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to accept the $4.7 million value in an appeal.

The accounting does not reveal how much the 2014 release of the biopic “Get On Up” and a documentary may have benefited Brown’s estate, his “I Feel Good” education charity, or other parties.

Two entities mentioned in previous accountings do not appear on the 2014 accounting, JB BIOPIC LLC and JB IP HOLDINGS LLC, nor is an accounting provided for James Brown LLC, which transferred $2.76 million into the estate.

These entities are not registered as charities with the South Carolina Secretary of State. It is not known how much money passes through them or who benefits from them — Brown’s estate, his charity, and/or individuals.

Bauknight’s attorney, David Black of Nexsen Pruet, was asked by email on Nov. 4 to comment on: who are the officers and beneficiaries of these LLC’s; how much were the earnings of these LLC’s during 2014; how much the education charity received and what disbursements were made to what individuals or to what entities from these LLC’s. By Nov. 10 he had not responded.

Brown’s will and trust left his music empire to an education charity for needy students in South Carolina and Georgia, the “I Feel Good” Trust. He also left up to $2 million in a family education trust and left household effects to six named children.

His will and trust contained a clause that said anyone who contested either document received nothing. Within a year of his death on Christmas Day 2006, Brown’s will was contested by all but one of the six children named in his will and by Brown’s companion, who has since been declared his wife by an Aiken Court.

Former Attorney General Henry McMaster worked a 2009 settlement deal that gave will contestants over half of what Brown left to charity.

The McMaster deal was appealed to the Supreme Court by the second set of Brown trustees, Adele Pope and Newberry and Robert Buchanan of Aiken. The Supreme Court heard arguments in November 2011 and overturned the settlement in May 2013, calling the deal a “dismemberment” of Brown’s “noble” estate plan.

The case was returned to Aiken County for further proceedings, and a hearing on the will contests has been scheduled for early 2016.