Author - atgfx

Steven Seagal’s former producer pleaded guilty to shaking down the action star with the help of a powerful wiseguy – but claims he was just trying to collect several million dollars that he’s owed. Julius Nasso agreed to serve a year and a day behind bars for extortion – a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years – as part of a deal hammered out with Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Genser.

Under siege by the feds, the former business partner of Steven Seagal will admit he tried to shake down the action film star, authorities said yesterday. Film producer Julius Nasso was charged last year with conspiring with the members of the Gambino crime family to extort $3 million from Seagal. Yesterday, Assistant U. S. Attorney Andrew Genser disclosed in Brooklyn Federal Court that the feds had reached an "agreement in principle" with Nasso to plead guilty next Wednesday. Under the deal, Nasso would serve one year in jail. He would have faced five to eight years in prison, if convicted of attempted extortion charges. "He just wants to put this behind him and continue with a fruitful, productive life," said his lawyer Robert Hantman. Seagal testified about the shakedown last February at the racketeering trial of Gambino boss Peter Gotti. He described a now infamous sitdown dinner at the landmark Gage & Tollner restaurant in Brooklyn at which a Gambino capo warned Seagal to make movies with them and Nasso. It is unclear what impact the guilty plea will have on Nasso's $60 million civil lawsuit against Seagal. "Mr. Seagal is pleased justice has been served, that he has been totally vindicated," Seagal's lawyer Martin Pollner said last night. The prosecutor also revealed that Nasso's brother, Vincent, has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in a mob scheme to award his company a lucrative prescription drug contract for the International Longshoremen's Association. Vincent Nasso will face two years in prison, a source familiar with the deal said.

The “other man” in the Kerry Kennedy-Andrew Cuomo divorce saga is a cheat in more ways than one, a former employee charged yesterday. In a $2.2 million lawsuit, Mauro Manfe claims Bruce Colley stiffed him out of almost $200,000 when Manfe worked at Colley’s Chelsea restaurant Man Ray.

The “other man” in the Kerry Kennedy-Andrew Cuomo divorce saga is a cheat in more ways than one, a former employee charged yesterday. In a $2.2 million lawsuit, Mauro Manfe claims Bruce Colley stiffed him out of almost $200,000 when he went to work at Colley’s Chelsea restaurant Man Ray.

The posh Chelsea restaurant owned by Bruce Colley is facing a legal showdown with a former manager who claims he was stiffed out of tens of thousands of dollars. Mauro Manfe, the former front man at Downtown Cipriani, claims he was lured to Man Ray in October 2001 with the promise of a matching salary plus 2 percent of the restaurant’s receipts, as well as full medical and dental benefits.

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. Julius R. Nasso showed up in town as a wannabe of a different sort. He presented himself as the poor immigrant from Brooklyn who started a pharmaceutical business with $500 saved from a clerk's job -- in a church. Then he set out, like so many others, to make movies. And for him, it happened.

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.

Jerry Seinfeld's first biographer swears he's "a big fan" of the comic. The feeling is not mutual. Jerry Oppenheimer, author of "Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon," admits his book will likely wipe the smile off the comedian's public face. "Jerry on TV is kind of this laid-back, somewhat neurotic guy who watches the world go by," Oppenheimer tells us. "In real life, he can be very dark and steely.

They called one enforcer the Lump. With his ''enormous and intimidating'' presence, and that of other Mafia underlings, their leader, a Gambino family captain, terrorized dockworkers and others in schemes to extort money and control the International Longshoremen's Association, the Justice Department contended in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday.

Fabio, the well-tressed hunk who rose to fame as the cover boy on bodice-ripper novels, yesterday came to court to defend his manly earnings. Testifying in a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by his former manager, Rhonda Gainer, a New York marketing specialist, Fabio endured two hours on the witness stand in Manhattan Federal Court without breaking a sweat. Gainer says the Fabster whose full name is Fabio Lanzoni and who is the son of a rich Italian conveyor-belt manufacturer wrongfully fired her in 1992, even after she brought him fame and 20 appearances on "Live With Regis and Kathie Lee" through her Cornell University-trained marketing savvy. As a result, she wants $6 million in cash. Magistrate Naomi Buchwald will decide the nonjury case. The man Cosmopolitan once dubbed the sexiest in the world wore a size 48, black leather jacket to answer questions about why he severed his ties to Gainer, who put together the Fabio calendar and claimed she thought up the idea of licensing his name. "There is no more trust there," he said in his Milanese accent, his blond-highlighted hair hanging loosely about his shoulders. Under cross-examination by Gainer's lawyer, Robert Hantman, Fabio acknowledged, "I wanted to become a quote-unquote celebrity," when he met Gainer, but said, "It doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time and a lot of work.