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James Brown charged with domestic violence

AIKEN, S.C., Oct. 31 -- Soul singer James Brown was arrested at his South Carolina home and charged with criminal domestic violence, the Aiken County Sheriff's office reported Tuesday. 'At approximately 4:20 a.m., The Aiken County Sheriff's office received a 911 call from Adrian Brown asking for medical assistance, claiming she had been assaulted by her husband, James Brown,' said sheriff's spokesman Don Biermen. 'Officers and an ambulance were dispatched to the residence,' Biermen told United Press International. 'Mrs. Brown was transported to the Aiken Regional Medical Center and Mr. Brown was arrested for criminal domestic violence.' Biermen said Brown, 62, was cooperative when taken into custody and has been released on bond. Biermen would not comment on the nature of the alleged domestic violence. A spokeswoman at Aiken Regional Medical Center would only say that Mrs. Brown, 45, had been treated and released. This is the latest in a series of run-ins with the law dating back to his youth for Brown, known as the Godfather of Soul. Brown, raised in a brothel in Augusta, Ga., was a self-professed gang member who stole 'to have some decent clothes to wear to school. We got into everything that wasn't nailed down, and we sold it -- hubcaps, gas caps, batteries. I knew I was destined to go (to jail).' Arrested at age 15 for breaking and entering, Brown was tried as an adult at age 16 and sentenced to eight to 16 years at the Georgia Juvenile Training Institute in Rome, Ga.

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While there, he formed a gospel singing group before earning early parole in 1952. Other charges Brown has faced include domestic violence, operating a motor vehicle without proof of insurance, resisting arrest and illegal possession of a firearm. Brown surrendered to authorities in Aiken in 1988 on criminal charges filed by Adrian Brown, his third wife, who claimed the singer fired a gun into the family's luxury car while she was inside and beat her with a pipe. Mrs. Brown later dropped those charges. Brown was released from a South Carolina prison in 1991 after serving three years of a six year sentence for carrying a firearm without a license and for leading police on a high speed chase. Brown claimed he was high on crack-cocaine at the time of the incident and underwent drug rehabilitation treatment. Most recently, Mrs. Brown filed a domestic violence charge against her husband last December for allegedly shoving her. Three months later she dropped the charges.

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