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Steven Seagal was born in Lansing, Michigan 4/10/51. His mother Patrizia Seagal was a nurse. His father was a teacher. He had three sisters and one brother.

Seagal was educated at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California and at Fullerton College in Southern California.

Michael Ovitz and Warner Brothers launched Seagal's career in 1988 with a string of B-actioners.

SoCal23521@aol.com writes on alt.showbiz.gossip 12/19/97: "It is a complete wonderment that this asshole continues to get work. I guess everyone is scared of his Mafia connections."

Steven met his first wife Miyako Fujitani in Japan. Born in 1948, she owned a martial arts shop. They married in 1975, had a son and daughter before divorcing in 1987. In 1984, Seagal married Adrienne La Russa. After La Russa got an annulment, Seagal married model-actress Kelly LeBrock in 1987. They had a son and a daughter before divorcing in November 1994. Seagal next married Arissa Wolf, former nanny to the children of Steven and Kelly's. Arissa's daughter Savannah was born in September 1996.

According to a 1993 Spy magazine article by John Connolly, Seagal was married to two other women at the time that he was courting her. He had a much publicized girlfriend around 1994 who got a restraining order against him. Apparently, his bodyguards had made some threats against her when she dumped him.

7/11/02

Anita Busch greenlighted journalist John Connolly to give the following to Rush & Molloy for a gossip item in the New York Daily News 7/11/02: "Los Angeles Times writer Anita Busch has been looking into the federal indictment of reputed Mafia captain Anthony (Sonny) Ciccone on charges of extortion and threatening to kill actor Steven Seagal. After digging into the story for a couple of weeks, Busch recently discovered that someone had come to her L.A. home and smashed her car's windshield, leaving a note that said, "Stop," sources tell us. She also found a metal box on the car. Bomb-squad cops found a dead fish [and a rose] in it. While police investigate the incident and other threats she has received, Busch has resigned from the story and is in hiding, say sources."

7/12/02

From the 7/12/02 LA TIMES (written by Paul Lieberman, titled "When Life Imitates a B-Movie"): NEW YORK -- When Steven Seagal first surfaced in Hollywood, as a ponytailed 6-foot-4 martial arts expert, he offered a background story full of murk and menace. He hinted in hushed tones of having done "special favors" for the CIA. Whether anyone believed him hardly mattered-what counted was how he put over the tough-guy image in films that cast him as a lone avenger caught in ominous conspiracies.

For a decade, Julius R. Nasso produced Steven Seagal films that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. Seagal bought the house next to Nasso's mansion on Staten Island. They were close friends. They often dressed alike, all in black.

Prosecutors say that Nasso is an associate of the Gambino crime family who plotted with a local Mafia captain how to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from Steven Seagal.

Seagal... is expected to be a key prosecution witness against [Julius R.] Nasso and reputed mob enforcers...

Nasso, even while denying any wrongdoing, wonders how Seagal could profess ignorance on [Nasso's mob ties]. Didn't he know the kind of people Nasso grew up around? Wasn't one of Nasso's brothers married to a Gambino?

[Seagal's] first wife, Miyako Fujitani, recalls him plotting out script ideas after they met in 1974, when he was 23. "He developed a story about a foreigner becoming a dojo master, then went on to the U.S.," she said.

By the time Nasso met him, Seagal had a new Hollywood wife, actress Kelly LeBrock, and a powerful booster, "superagent" Michael Ovitz. Ovitz's agency set up a demonstration so Warner Bros. executives could see Seagal flip aside a parade of attackers.

The result was his screen debut, at 37, in "Above the Law," about a former CIA operative who discovers nefarious plots in the agency. Before it hit theaters in 1988, Seagal was profiled in a Times piece that cast a skeptical eye on his vague stories of having a "CIA godfather" in Japan.

[Sonny] Ciccone "on more than one occasion" met with the intended victim [Seagal]. Seagal told authorities that one such visit was in Toronto, during the making of "Exit Wounds."

Attorneys for Nasso, who is charged with conspiracy and attempted extortion, have not heard the tapes. But they have already floated another defense: that the actor knew these people on his own. "Steven Seagal is a mob nut," criminal lawyer Barry Levin said after Nasso's arrest.

The actor's lawyers angrily accused Nasso's side of trying to smear the victim in the case. But they acknowledge that Seagal may have met organized crime figures while interviewing "various people for authenticity" for the mob movie he and Nasso worked on.

As to whether Seagal knew of Nasso's alleged underworld connections, the Seagal camp allows that Nasso at times "acted as if" he knew mob figures but "no one believed him."

Nasso became intrigued by Hollywood in 1980, when Italian director Sergio Leone came to Brooklyn to film the mob saga "Once Upon a Time in America." Nasso got a job as a translator and gofer for the director. Nasso's parents emigrated from Italy when he was 3. He spoke Italian and English.

Nasso moved to LA and met Steven Seagal. At the time, Steven was married to actress Kelly LeBrock. His agent was Michael Ovitz. Steven made his screen debut, at age 37, in Above the Law. It grossed almost three times its $7 million budget.

Julius served as an unpaid intern on Seagal's next few movies. Then the two went into business together wtih Seagal Nasso Productions.

Nasso received his first credit (associate producer) on Seagal's third movie, Marked for Death. He became executive producer of "Out for Justice," filmed in 1990 in Brooklyn.

When Spy magazine questioned Nasso's mob ties, Seagal filed a suit. He claimed false and defamatory statements, such as that he was "friends with individuals who have ties to the 'Mafia.' " Steven later dropped the suit.

Many actors have flaunted their ties with the Mob, from George Raft who grew up with the Mob in NYC, to James Caan, who got to know the Mafia researching his role as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather.

After his divorce, Seagal fell under the influence of an obscure Tibetan Buddhist sect. In 1997, a recognized Tibetan Buddhist leader named Steven a "tulku," a reincarnation "of the [17th century] treasure revealer Chungdrag Dorje."

Seagal and Nasso went their separate ways soon after.

Nasso talked to the LA Times in June, 2002 about his life and accomplishments in Hollywood. Julius had a 1991 lunch at Le Cirque with Terry Semel, then chief executive of Warner Bros.; went with Donald Trump to the 1993 opening of the studio's store in Manhattan; went with Seagal to David Letterman's show to promote "On Deadly Ground."

7/18/02

AP: [Seagal] was in Canada when four alleged mobsters visited him to make demands. Wiretapped conversations show Julius Nasso, Seagal's longtime producer, participated in demanding Seagal pay $150,000 (U.S.) to the mob for each movie he made.

Ciccone told Nasso he should be tougher with the actor, saying "you really gotta get down on him ... 'cause I know this animal, I know this beast."

Investigators have said Seagal was so shaken he paid $700,000 to the mob. That information was not included in the new filing.

7/26/02

New York Post: A MARTIAL arts student of Steven Seagal has delivered a swift kick to the embattled action star with an embarrassing affidavit describing Seagal's strange behavior. Ahnume Guerios - an ally of Seagal's former partner Julius Nasso, who is suing Seagal for $60 million - claims the star:

* Declared that the Dalai Lama told him to keep making violent action films so Seagal could reach "an audience of billions" with his Buddhist beliefs.

* Required that applicants for a job as his female assistant submit their measurements and pictures, and be no more than 20 years old. * Claimed he had been poisoned in 1994, which resulted in damage to his liver, kidney and brain that left him with "parasites and heavy metals in his blood." Seagal later sought help from a Brazilian medicine man.

* Wanted to film a martial arts musical called "Blue Bayou" that would "combine action and music, so that Seagal would be able to show his musical talent."

8/8/02

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) Action star Steven Seagal got angry with a reporter on Thursday who asked him about his tangles with the Mafia.

Seagal was openly annoyed at the questions about Nasso's lawsuit, complaining to an assistant about being asked on-camera about it. "You can start talking about my personal life in America, but everyone in Hollywood knows it's beyond stupid, beyond ludicrous," said the 51-year-old, who described the lawsuit as a "publicity stunt" to draw attention away from Nasso's arrest "with 16 other major Mafia figures."

9/4/02

From the NY Times 9/4/02: "The author of a article in Vanity Fair about the actor Steven Seagal's allegation that he was extorted by the Mafia has told the police that he was threatened at gunpoint last week in Los Angeles, the police said yesterday. The writer, Ned Zeman, is the second journalist to report being threatened [August 28] while working on an article about Mr. Seagal's allegation, which grows out of a federal investigation into charges of corruption on the Brooklyn waterfront."

9/5/02

Ned Zeman writes in the October 2002 issue of Vanity Fair: "Seagal's film career is in a death spiral thanks in part to his vile, simian behaviour toward colleagues, women, employees and reporters - not to mention his serial dissembling, his dime-store theology and his all-round vulgarism."

NY Post: The [Vanity Fair] piece raises questions about Seagal's prowess as a martial artist, recounting how stuntman Gene LeBell once choked Seagal unconscious during an aikido demonstration, and how Seagal ducked a bout with champion black belt Bob Wall, who promised to rip off his head and defecate down his neck.

"With each misstep, from 'The Glimmer Man' (1996) to 'Fire Down Below' (1997), Seagal became a bigger liability, his waistline increasing, his hairline retreating," Zeman reports. "When Warner Bros. put him on a strict diet and supplied him with a trainer, they found cookie crumbs on the fitness equipment."

Seagal is now said to be working with Danny Provenzano, great nephew of late Teamsters boss Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano.

9/6/02

New York Post: DANNY Provenzano phoned yesterday to dispute Vanity Fair's report that he's replaced Jules Nasso as Steven Seagal's producer. Provenzano is set to go on trial this month in New Jersey as a Genovese racketeer. He has also directed "This Thing of Ours," and he's been hired by producer Anthony Esposito to helm "Sinking Springs," about a motorcycle gang that deals drugs to Amish kids. "He's a very good director," Esposito says. But Provenzano told us: "I would never work with Steven Seagal ever. I don't like people who are disloyal to their friends." Seagal, according to Vanity Fair, "had been bad-mouthing [Nasso] to a federal grand jury."

9/30/02

Newsday reports that Steven Seagal has a permit to carry a gun in New York City.

11/5/02

Newsday: A defense attorney in the Gambino crime family waterfront case has indicated that actor Steven Seagal, an alleged victim of mob extortion, is a subject of a federal probe into threats against two Los Angeles newspaper reporters.

Barry Levin, who is defending businessman Vincent Nasso in the Brooklyn racketeering case on charges he shook down Seagal, made public his claim about the actor in a letter dated Oct. 31 to federal judge Frederic Block.

"The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York is aware that Steven Seagal is the subject of a criminal investigation in Calfiornia concerning actual violence, threats of violence and the extortion of two newspaper reporters" who wrote unfavorable articles about the actor, Levin said in the letter.

11/6/02

I've Got Questions About Warner Bros

Why were Warner Brothers and Terry Semel in bed with a Steven Seagal and his producing partner Julius Nasso, an accused Mafia associate, for a decade?

Why was former co-head of Warners, Semel, such good buddies with Seagal and Nasso? Why does Nasso have pictures in his home of himself with Semel? Why did Semel eat out with Nasso?

Why does Terry Semel, now CEO of Yahoo, have the reputation of being someone who will do anything to make a buck?

Why did Warners give the foreign sales rights on many Seagal films to Nasso? Warners has the best foreign sales team in the business.

A studio source says: "Being in bed with someone considered by law enforcement a Mafia associate would only bother a studio if the movies aren't working. If the movies made money, the studio would not care.

"Warner Brothers is not in the business of altruism. You don't give away foreign rights, you sell them. I assume that Nasso brought in sufficient investment to co-finance the movies in exchange for foreign rights. Many action movies are financed that way because they have a large foreign upside. It was the same in the heydey of Jean Claude Van Damme. The Hollywood studio would finance based on a US distribution guarantee and the producer would have to find money for foreign."

Foreign sales rights are a great way to launder money.

An FBI agent told the LA Times that Hollywood doesn't care about dirty money. "If you find that, in general, the people who should be your witnesses are not willing to give you the sweat off their brow, then you realize that you are faced with a situation where there is a community acceptance of a set of standards that might be offensive in some areas, but not here. And we have to look at it that way, just like we look at pornography, based on community standards. Unfortunately, we have a set of standards about how to finance motion pictures in Hollywood that is incredibly lax. In the last ten years or so, we've made six or seven efforts to try to ferret our allegations of organized crime in the movie business. And we got zero support from the industry. They don't view it as a threat. It's good money to them. It's a way of life, condoned, even embraced. Nobody wants to expose it." (LA Times 6/15/82)

What is the significance of Steven Seagal's friend Danny Provenzano pleading guilty Wednesday? I hear he's only going to serve one to three years, which means he's talking. If I were Seagal, I'd be nervous.

To get rid of his partnershp with Julius Nasso, Seagal went to Provenzano but Provenzano didn't have the power. Sonny Franzese, a scary guy at 84 years, had the power. Sonny Ciccone, a threat to Seagal on behalf of Nasso, was frightened away by Sonny Franzese. When Franzese was put away in jail, Nasso and Ciccone went back to work against Seagal, according to court documents. They've owned Seagal for 15 years. For 15 years, Seagal, a big star for Terry Semel's Warners, has been in the pocket of the Mafia.

Anthony "Sonny" Ciccone, a Mafia captain who rules the Staten Island waterfront according to court documents, threatened to kill Steven Seagal as part of a multimillion-dollar extortion scheme. (LAT, 6/12/02)

This investigation of Julius Nasso isn't about Nasso and extortion. It's about the infiltration of the mob into big money industries including entertainment.

Why did Warner Brothers go out on a limb for an unknown actor (Seagal) in 1988? The answer is that Terry Semel, former co-head of Warner Bros with Bob Daly, has a close relationship with accused Mafia associate Jules Nasso. On the recent E! channel special on Steven Seagal, in 1988, Seagal said, "I have a personal relationship with Terry Semel." What was that about?

Why, in 1996, did Terry Semel and Bob Daly convince Norman Pearlstine, Time editorial director, to spike a devastating profile of Seagal for Time magazine by reporters John Connolly and Richard Zoglin?

Why Seagal break with Nasso? Because Seagal's career was on the skids. He became heavily involved in this Buddhist stuff. Danny Provenzano was telling Seagal, you don't need this guy Nasso. Come with me. Seagal and Provenzano didn't have the juice until they hooked up with Sonny Franzese, who then went to jail.

I hear that this guy Proctor was not hired directly by Steven Seagal. He was hired by somebody else, a player peripherally in the entertainment industry but widely known, and an associate of Seagal's.

Nasso is not the brightest and not Machiavellian enough to send goons after reporters.

The feds don't want to embarrass their star witness - Steven Seagal. Seagal is against Ciccone and Nasso.

Rob writes: I went directly to the fountainhead of all things Steven Seagal, www.stevenseagal.com, and his message board members are more concerned with their hero's expanding waistline than any of his alleged mob ties. Read and laugh!

Journalist John Connolly writes 11/6/02: Luke Ford, I was unaware of your website until this afternoon. Someone directed me to the Anita Busch articles. I'm quite impressed by your work. Very well researched and documented. Continued success. I also agree with your suggestion that the threats to Busch and Zeman originated in the [Steven] Seagal camp. I can assure you that Anita Busch was not the first reporter/journalist to ever be threatened by the "Seagal camp". My sources tell me to expect more arrests and that one of them, not an actor, will be someone very well, known in Hollywood. Stay tuned.

Luke asks: Weren't you threatened with death by the Seagal camp?

John replies 11/7/02: The only threat I received during the Spy story was from Seagal's legal Doberman, Marty Singer. When I refused to stop researching the story, they sued me to attempt to stop publication. They alleged that I had slandered Seagal by asking questions about him. A few months after they filed the suit, they were disabused of that notion and withdrew the suit. Neither Spy, nor myself made any corrections, retractions or settlement to Seagal.

The threat you mentioned happened six years ago. I had been hired by Time magazine to help Richard Zoglin write a feature on Seagal. Just prior to publication, Norman Pearlstein at the urging of Semel and Daly of Warner Bros. spiked the story. I took it to Penthouse and contemporaneous with the publication of the story I received a threat from the "Seagal Camp". Penthouse, my lawyer and myself took it very, very seriously. Without going into detail, the very same people that Seagal recently testified against were the fine folks involved in the very real threat to my life. I would think that the people involved in the threats against Busch and Zeman, might want to think about running to the authorities with their story before someone else gets there first.

LA Times Catches Up To Scoop Luke

Matt Lait and Scott Glover write in the 11/22/02 LA Times:

A man charged with threatening a Los Angeles Times reporter who was researching the relationship between Steven Seagal and an alleged Mafia associate told an informant for the FBI that Seagal was behind the threat, according to court documents.

Alexander Proctor, a 59-year-old ex-convict charged with threatening reporter Anita Busch, allegedly told the informant during secretly recorded conversations that he had been hired to carry out the threat by Anthony Pellicano, known as the private detective to the stars. [I reported most of this 11/13. I know the name of the informant, a man with ties to the Russian mob.]

According to the FBI, Proctor told the informant that Seagal had hired Pellicano to threaten the reporter. "He wanted to make it look like the Italians were putting the hit on her so it wouldn't reflect on Seagal," Proctor told the informant, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by an FBI agent assigned to the case.

On Thursday, more than a dozen FBI agents searched Pellicano's West Hollywood office. An FBI spokesman, Matt McLaughlin, said Pellicano had been arrested in connection with what appeared to be explosive materials discovered in his office during the search. He is expected to appear before a federal magistrate today, McLaughlin said. [I named Pellicano a suspect 11/13 and wrote that he had close ties to Proctor.]

One federal law enforcement source close to the case said that "at this time, other than Proctor's uncorroborated statements, there is no independent evidence that Seagal was involved in the threat made to the reporter." The source added that investigators were still assessing Proctor's credibility and possible motives.

An attorney for Seagal said his client had no involvement in the June 20 threat against the reporter, who woke up that morning and found a dead fish, a rose and a note attached to her car windshield, which had been punctured. The note was a one-word message: "Stop."

Before he was handcuffed, Pellicano declined to comment. As a celebrity sleuth with a star-studded clientele, he has cultivated a tough-guy image: He hands out paperweights to reporters saying, "Sometimes ... you just have to play hardball."

Proctor, who was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles without bail, has pleaded not guilty in the case. His attorney, Victor Cannon, could not be reached for comment.

According to court documents, Proctor told the informant that he owed Pellicano $14,000 and agreed to intimidate Busch for $10,000. But after the job was done, Proctor said, "they" were so pleased with his work that Pellicano agreed to wipe out his remaining debt.

Proctor allegedly told the informant that he was supposed to "blow up" Busch's car as a warning so she would stop reporting on the story about Seagal. But he said it would have been too difficult to set her car ablaze, because she lived near an apartment complex. He said Busch also had a neighbor who stayed up late at night, and he was apparently afraid he would be seen.

In the end, Proctor allegedly told the informant that he bought the fish and rose and placed them on Busch's car, putting a bullet hole in the windshield and taping the cardboard sign to it.

After Busch's car was vandalized, she told authorities she thought the incident was related to her investigative work on an article about Seagal and his former producing partner, Julius Nasso, who had a bitter business fallout with the film star.

According to federal authorities, Nasso is an associate of the Gambino crime family. He was indicted earlier this year, along with other reputed mob figures, in connection with a plot to extort money from Seagal. He has pleaded not guilty.

Seagal is scheduled to testify next year as a prosecution witness at the trials of several alleged mobsters and Nasso in Brooklyn. Last month, Nasso's attorney alleged in a court document that Seagal might have been involved in the threat against Busch, and that could reflect on the actor's credibility as a witness.

Proctor's taped statements to the informant are detailed in a 21-page application for a search warrant [to search Proctor's residence].

According to the FBI, the agency's informant was facing criminal charges of his own, including mail fraud, at the time he agreed to cooperate with the investigation of Proctor.

The day after Busch's car was vandalized, the informant called the reporter, saying he knew who was responsible. He said Proctor at that time told him he had vandalized the car and was working for guys "back East" who were ruthless and wanted Busch to back off her story.

The informant then agreed to wear a concealed recording device while trying to coax out more details about the plot from Proctor.

During a July 3 meeting with the informant, Proctor reportedly said he had actually carried out the threats against Busch on behalf of Seagal, not ruthless men from back East.

According to the court documents, Proctor talked to Pellicano on several occasions. There is no indication in the documents that he ever met with Seagal.

According to prosecutors, Proctor is an ex-convict with burglary and narcotics-related convictions. He is charged with interfering with commerce by threats of violence. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

11/25/02

Jose Lambiet in the latest issue of the weekly tabloid The Star (12/3/02) has an interesting article on Steven Seagal and Julius Nasso. You won't read a lot about Seagal in the tabloids because Seagal is now regarded as a has-been.

There's a great photo of Nasso and Seagal before Nasoo bought Seagal a bunch of plastic surgery. Nasso sits in the picture with his shirt open, a hairy chest and a gold medallion hanging out. Every mobster's stereotype is in this picture.

Without plastic surgery, you could not have put Seagal on the screen. His chin was too big and his face was rough. He'd lost almost his hair before his first movie, so he needed hair transplants. He definitely had a nose job. There's also a rumor that Nasso paid for Seagal's acting lessons.

According to the 12/3/02 Star tabloid: "Famed Miami plastic surgeon Brad Herman, who has not treated Seagal, looked at the shots [printed in the Star] and confirmed: "Steven obviously had rhinoplasty surgery (a fancy term for "nose job"), a hair transplant and maybe some chin work."

"Spies in Nasso's entourage say he's the one who paid for the surgeries in 1987 to help make Seagal's face passable for moviegoers! "Nasso claims he spent at least $50,000," a source says. "And now Seagal repays him by siccing the feds at him."

11/30/02

Sharon Waxman writes in the Washington Post: Seagal, for his part, has long been relegated to the dustbin of Hollywood has-beens, making movies with small independent producers primarily for the foreign market because the studios aren't interested in working with him. Sources close to the actor, who likes to travel about town in a white stretch limo, say he sometimes seems delusional, as when he recently called his agent and demanded that former president Bill Clinton come to his office in 20 minutes.

2/8/03

Paul Lieberman writes in The Los Angeles Times: In the movies, Steven Seagal often portrays heroic cops. But when the action star found himself in a real-life Mafia dispute, he didn't turn to law enforcement -- according to federal authorities, he visited a New Jersey prison to get help from another mob family.

Seagal even paid $10,000 to a lawyer for an imprisoned mob captain, hoping the mobster would intercede with the group pressuring him for money to "see if we could settle this like businesspeople instead of like thugs," according to defense lawyers quoting from documents handed over to them late this week in the ongoing trial of seven reputed members of the Gambino crime family charged with racketeering along the New York waterfront.

Federal prosecutors say they may call Seagal as early as Monday to testify in U.S. District Court against the alleged mob crew accused of attempting to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from him, even as they pursued long-standing rackets along the Brooklyn and Staten Island docks and passed envelopes of cash up the crime family ladder to the brother of the late John Gotti.

...[D]efense attorneys said the FBI documents confirm that it's Angelo Prisco, a captain in the Genovese crime family serving a 12-year sentence for arson and conspiracy to commit racketeering -- and that Seagal also acknowledged giving Prisco's lawyer $10,000 after the visit in the spring of 2001.

John Brodie writes in the 3/03 GQ:

Steven Seagal's longtime lawyer Martin Singer says Seagal has nothing to do with Pellicano...

Anthony says he hates Seagal. "First of all, Steven Seagal is an enemy of mine and has been for seven years. I can't stand the piece of shit. He's a rat cocksucker. Nobody's going to believe that I did this for Seagal," Pellicano said, his voice bubbling to a crescendo at the perceived injustice of it all. "Number one, I didn't do it for Seagal. Number two, if I was going to intimidate somebody, I'm not gonna put a fish on their car. I'm going to be in their face like I've been all my life."

Other L.A. private investigators are troubled by Pellicano's version of events, noting that the work for Gorry Meyer & Rudd would have put him back into Seagal's orbit. In the past, Pellicano has been accused of playing one side of a case against the other. Nils Grevillius, a former Pinkerton agent and a rival investigator, interviewed the parking valets at Pellicano's office building last fall. As Grevillius states, 'I asked them, 'Say, didn't I see that actor Steven Seagal over here the other day?' And they said, 'Oh yeah, he comes here all the time.' Now, I was standing right next to Pellicano's Mercedes convertible, which has a special spot next to the valet-parking area, and they nodded to Pellicano's car when I looked at it. The night before Thanksgiving, I was talking to the security guard in the lobby, and I affected the mien of a rube and said, 'Gee, didn't I see Steven Seagal in here the other day?' And the security guard said, 'Oh yeah, yeah, he's here all the time. In fact, his private detective is upstairs. and he's the one who got in trouble.'"

But the government does not seem in any hurry to move past Pellicano and up the evidentiary chain - at least until Seagal has finished singing in the Gambino trial. According to Seagal's attorney, neither the FBI nor the LAPD has questioned his client in connection with the attacks on the journalists, nor has the FBI requested Seagal's bank or phone records. As of press time, no one has been arrested in connection with the attack on Zeman. The FBI scheduled, then postponed, a lineup.