WASHINGTON (AP) — Singer Chris Brown was close to resolving his assault case in a deal that would have kept him out of jail, but talks fell apart Wednesday when attorneys couldn’t agree on what Brown would acknowledge happened during a scuffle that led to his arrest.

Brown was arrested in October and charged with misdemeanor assault after a man accused the singer of hitting him when he tried to get in a photograph Brown was taking with two women outside a Washington hotel. At the time, Brown was on probation in California for a 2009 attack on singer Rihanna, his then girlfriend.