cannot create Branch with TFS-provider: "TF10125: The path must start with $/"

Running the maven command:
mvn release:branch -DbranchName=$/NNG/ORK/maven-branch-10

invokes finally
tf branch D:\Dev\projects\NNG\ORK\dev\PLS -checkin $/NNG/ORK/maven-branch-10

this causes an error:
"TF10125: The path must start with $/"

After a research I found the checkin statement causes this problem, because if I comment out the "checkin" argument (in org.apache.maven.scm.provider.tfs.command.TfsBranchCommand), it works fine. However, we do want to use the "checkin" statement because we want the new branch to be checked-in. I found out that it will be OK to use "checkin", only if we use a TFS path (starts with '$/'), instead of local-path.