A Minnesota judge wants to get moving quickly on sorting out Prince's estate, giving people claiming to be the late singer's heirs only until Friday to file their claims.
Prince, whose full name was Prince Rogers Nelson, died April 21 at age 57 of opioid toxicity — without having left a will, according to his sister. That leaves it up to the courts to figure out who gets all or parts of his estimated $27 million-plus in property and untold millions more in potential licensing and rights income.
So far, Prince's sister, Tyka Nelson, several half-brothers and -sisters and assorted nieces and nephews through some of those half-siblings have taken steps to claim the estate.
So has a federal prison inmate in Colorado who claims he's Prince's son from a 1976 fling. And so has a man named Norman Yates Carthens of Barnwell, South Carolina, according to The Associated Press, which quoted Carthens as saying in court documents: "My dad was giving me 7,000,000 [sic]. So I'm putting a $7,000,000 claim on the estate because I'm a heir and I have proof."
Carver County, Minnesota, District Judge Kevin W. Eide on Monday ordered that anyone else wanting to put in a claim must do so by Friday, June 10.
The claims will be reviewed by a special administrator appointed to oversee Prince's finances pending a resolution.
The administrator, the wealth management firm Bremer Trust, could decide that DNA testing is appropriate, according to the order.
