A Mob Case, and a Scene Straight Out of Hollywood: “Steven Seagal, the action film star cited as a Mafia extortion target, has told investigators that after he stopped working with his longtime producer he was ordered into a car in Brooklyn last year and shuttled to a landmark restaurant where he was threatened by mobsters, according to officials and lawyers involved in the case.

He was so intimidated, he recounted, that he agreed to turn over $700,000, although investigators are still trying to trace the money

…By various opposing accounts, the peculiar tale may shape up as a battle for control over the actor between a Mafia extortion crew, which threatened his life, and Buddhist advisers who voiced concern for his afterlife.” NY Times [thanks, Richard, who asked, “Surely, you are going to include this article in FmH.”] [And I’ll never be able to see a listing for a Seagal film again without a guffaw…]