August 13 [16:00 EDT] -- R. Kelly reached a settlement with four Louisiana men who filed a Federal civil lawsuit against the R&B singer after a July 1996 brawl at a health club in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Christopher Mahoney (one of the men who claimed Kelly and his entourage attacked them during a basketball game, violating their civil rights) received 110 stitches on his face.

Lafayette District Attorney Mike Harson reduced charges in a state criminal case against the Chicago-based singer after research in the civil trial revealed that another member of Kelly's five-man entourage was responsible for Mahoney's facial injuries. Harson reduced a felony count of second-degree battery to simple battery. After pleading no contest to the charge, Kelly was sentenced to one-year of unsupervised probation.

Harson is still reviewing whether to charge William Robert Hinton, one of Kelly's bodyguards, with second-degree battery for punching Mahoney in the mouth. If charged

and convicted, the maximum penalty for that felony is $2,000 or up to five years in jail.