Witnesses for Gotti say Seagal is a liar

[Catlady]

SEAGAL A LEADING MAN OF LIES, SAY WITNESSES
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By KATI CORNELL SMITH

Martial-arts master Steven Seagal (news) is a "delusional" liar, witnesses testified yesterday in defense of a reputed wiseguy accused of trying to squeeze millions out of the action-flick actor.

"His ability to be truthful is questionable, very much so," said Canadian filmmaker Damian Lee, when asked to describe Seagal's reputation in the movie world.

Lee was one of seven witnesses reputed Gambino capo Anthony "Sonny" Ciccone's lawyer George Santangelo called to blast holes in the feds' version of the Seagal extortion saga.

The 50-year-old star - who testified at the Peter Gotti racketeering trial earlier this month - claims a group of wiseguys headed by Ciccone tried to muscle their way into the film industry by extorting him.

Seagal has accused his former producer Julius Nasso of teaming up with the thugs after their partnership dissolved, and trying to force the martial-arts master to keep making action flicks - and shell out $3 million.

The aging action hero said the Gambinos expected a cut of the profits.

"Delusional, that would be a fair way of putting it," Lee told The Post outside court, describing Seagal's mental state. "You can't tell what is fact or fiction."

Another witness who testified yesterday said Seagal once convinced Nasso, a Staten Island resident, to jump on a red-eye flight because the star's California estate was under siege by Japanese "yakuza" gangsters.

James Daluise, a friend of Nasso's, said he accompanied the producer on the bizarre emergency trip. By the time the pair arrived in California, Seagal calmly told them it was "a mistake."

Peter Gotti says his trial is "window dressing" and the feds should be "embarrassed" by their case.N.Y. Post: G.N. Miller

In an angry courtroom tirade, reputed mob boss Peter Gotti accused prosecutors of using him as "window dressing" in their racketeering trial - and ranted that the feds are secretly plotting to slap him with new charges if he beats this case.

"If there's a God above . . . and I beat this, how long will it be before there's another [case]? Two or three weeks?" the gruff-voiced Peter fumed. "Find someone else to waste your money on. This is window dressing!"

Peter unleashed his fury on a prosecutor and an investigator who remained in the courtroom after Brooklyn federal court Judge Frederic Block and the jury left on the last day of evidence presentation.

And the accused Gambino big wasn't just blowing off steam - he wanted answers.

"C'mon, you can answer. There's no one around," Peter shouted at special Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Whelan, who did not respond and averted his eyes from the ranting wiseguy.

Peter - who is on trial with six other alleged mobsters, including his brother Richard V. Gotti and his nephew Richard G. Gotti - faces money-laundering charges for allegedly taking a cut of various Gambino rackets as boss of the crime family.

Plea talks prior to the trial failed because federal prosecutors in Manhattan refused to give Peter protection against any new charges.

Brooklyn federal prosecutors mounted a circumstantial case, showing jurors dozens of photographs and a blurry surveillance video of Peter's regular meetings with his alleged bag man Jerome Brancato, among other evidence.

In one case, Brancato climbed into Peter's Ford Expedition carrying a bag - allegedly containing money - and came out empty-handed. But investigators never saw money change hands.

Lt. Stephen Mutone, an investigator with the Waterfront Commission who documented a March 28, 2001, meeting between Peter and Brancato on an extremely blurry video, bore the brunt of the reputed Gambino boss's most scathing remarks yesterday.

"All the times you followed me, why didn't you search me? You should be embarrassed!"

Defense lawyer Gerald Shargel said he intends in his closing argument later this week to "deflate the circumstantial-evidence case" by showing that prosecutors "cherry-picked" their wiretap recordings to suit their version of the facts.

"They have not given a complete picture," Shargel said outside of court.

Cops in Times Square control an enraged mob of 3,500 rap wannabes who became furious when MTV canceled a talent contest because of overcrowding.N.Y. Post: G.N. Miller

Times Square turned into a war zone yesterday morning when thousands of angry young rappers clashed with police after MTV canceled a widely promoted talent contest because too many people showed up.

Helicopters hovered over Midtown, as cops on horseback and in riot gear beat back a crowd of about 3,500 aspiring performers from all over the country who had descended on MTV's Times Square headquarters for an open casting call. Cops called the disturbance a Level 3 alert - on a four-level scale.

The popular music channel had promised to judge 1,000 rappers during the week and give a Def Jam recording contract and $25,000 to the winner.

"I'm disappointed," said Don Sanborn, 27, who flew to New York from Seattle for the contest.

"I saw people falling down. There were some calm cats, but not others. This is a sad day for hip-hop."

Rappers from as far away as Honolulu began lining up outside MTV at 1515 Broadway on Sunday night to take part in the contest. By 7 a.m. yesterday, the crowd had grown to about 3,500.

At that point, MTV canceled the event at the cops' request because of overcrowding, said Jeannie Kedas, a spokeswoman for the channel.

A police source said cops were forced to shut the event down because MTV failed to come through on its promise - to distribute ID bracelets to guarantee people's place in line and to provide adequate security to police the event. MTV's negligence put public safety at risk and created an "out of control" crowd, the cop said.

Disappointed rappers stormed crowd-control barricades and trampled over those at the front of the line. Four people were arrested for disorderly conduct - three of the four were charged with inciting to riot - and two cops received minor injuries, cops said.

"The cops became crazy," complained Eliezer Ruiz, 20, of The Bronx, who had lined up outside MTV at about 4:30 a.m. yesterday.

"They didn't have the lines set up properly. Everybody was pinned in like a bunch of animals. The cops rushed the line. It made people crazy."

A police spokesman denied that cops behaved badly.

"If there are complaints, they should report them," he said.

Kedas said MTV believes it was properly prepared to deal with the crowds and was disappointed it had to cancel.

"We apologize to anyone who traveled far or waited long," she said. "We really tried to make it happen and are rescheduling the contest."

CM+NT But rappers on the streets weren't buying MTV's line.

"First they said they'd see 1,000 people, then they canceled it,"1/8 said Moo Shareef, 18, of Union, N.J. "People came from all over the country."1/8

CM+NT But rappers on the streets weren't buying MTV's line.

"First they said they'd see 1,000 people, then they canceled it," said Moo Shareef, 18, of Union, N.J. "People came from all over the country


I say these are friends of the jerks and yes they would say he lie's but they have this on tape if I remember right...

[Mama San]

Wonder how much money or what kind of threats did the "mob" use against these so-called "witnesses", to elicit their testimonies?
God bless,
Mama san

[suziwong]

This is another artical from New York Times:

"Testimony Cites Steven Seagal and Seafood, Not a Shakedown
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

When the actor Steven Seagal sat down for dinner with a group of reputed mobsters two years ago, he "looked like he does in the movies," a headwaiter at the restaurant testified at a racketeering trial yesterday. What he did not look like, the headwaiter said, was a man gripped by fear.

Mr. Seagal testified earlier this month that one of the defendants, Anthony Ciccone, who prosecutors say is a captain in the Gambino crime family, issued veiled threats during dinner at a Brooklyn restaurant. Yesterday, the headwaiter, Wade Sinclair, as well as a waiter and the restaurant manager said there were no signs that Mr. Seagal was in the middle of a mob shakedown.

The waiter, Mark Bermudez, said Mr. Seagal and several of the seven men on trial in Federal Court in Brooklyn for racketeering shared a seafood platter at the restaurant, Gage & Tollner, in downtown Brooklyn, in January 2001. When a defense lawyer asked if Mr. Seagal appeared disturbed during the meal, the waiter answered: "Not at all." The manager, Vincent Palumbo, testified that he did not notice any threatening gestures toward Mr. Seagal.

Prosecutors said Mr. Ciccone demanded that Mr. Seagal pay as much as $3 million to resolve a dispute Mr. Seagal was having with his longtime producer, Julius R. Nasso.

Yesterday, a prosecutor, Andrew M. Genser, suggested to the jurors that the restaurant employees might not have been in a position to know what was going on during the meal. He asked the waiter: "You weren't staring at Steven Seagal's face the whole hour and a half, were you?"

The answer was, "No, I just did my job and got out of the way."

The restaurant employees and a handful of others witnesses, including a chauffeur and a former bowling-alley bouncer, were called by George L. Santangelo, the lawyer for Mr. Ciccone, who is on trial with Peter Gotti and five other men in a wide-ranging racketeering case. The prosecutors say Mr. Gotti is the boss of the Gambino family once headed by his brother, John J. Gotti.

Yesterday was the only day of defense testimony in the six-week case. Mr. Gotti's lawyer, Gerald L. Shargel, rested his case without calling a single witness.

Two of the defense lawyers called the witnesses yesterday to try to respond to the claimed extortion of Mr. Seagal and to present a skeleton of a response to a few other issues, including whether one of the defendants, Richard G. Gotti, can explain why investigators found $12,000 in cash when they searched him in November 2001. Richard Gotti, a nephew of Peter, is one of the defendants.

Prosecutors said the money was a payment from a Gambino crew. Richard G. Gotti's lawyer, Harry Batchelder, suggested that the cash was part of the operation of a preschool that Mr. Gotti runs with his wife.

But for the most part, the defense witnesses steered far from the complexities at the heart of the prosecution case, which includes charges of loan-sharking, illegal gambling, extortion and union corruption. Except for Mr. Shargel, the defense lawyers presented virtually no evidence yesterday aimed at rebutting the hundreds of prosecution surveillance tapes. Those tapes include dialogue that the prosecutors say includes several of the defendants, though not Peter Gotti, plotting crimes.

Mr. Shargel introduced three excerpts of government surveillance tapes that had not been introduced by the prosecutors. As is common in Mafia cases, he is expected to argue to the jury that the new excerpts presented a different narrative than the one suggested by prosecutors. The three new excerpts included bugged restaurant conversations between Mr. Ciccone and another defendant, his aide, Primo Cassarino.

The charges against Mr. Gotti involve contentions that Mr. Ciccone sent him regular payments as tribute because of Mr. Gotti's role as the Gambino boss. Mr. Shargel is expected to argue that it would be too big a leap for jurors to make any correlation between Mr. Ciccone's actions and payments to Mr. Gotti.

At times, Mr. Gotti has appeared jaunty in the courtroom. But yesterday, after the jury had departed, he angrily turned to a prosecutor and an investigator and asked what would happen if he beat the prosecution's case. He received no answer in the courtroom, even when he seemed to be suggesting that he considered acquittal likely. But he also suggested that a not-guilty verdict would hardly be the end of his legal troubles.

He sarcastically asked how long it would be before the government would pursue him in a new case. He answered his own question. It would be two or three weeks, he predicted, before prosecutors filed charges against him again"

************************************************

I don't understand !!! What happened mobs sounds bands ??????????????


I guess toooooooooo much moneyyyy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!toooooooooooo muchhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

what a job ????

in oneness

[Mama San]

Suzi, my little friend,
Yes, they are very bad people! They think no more about killing a person than you would at stepping on a bug! They are some of the most dangerous and evil people in the world! The only "person" I can think of, to compare them with, would be Saddam Hussein.
As for that waiter that testified, what did they think he would say? He doesn't want to end up being food for the fishes!
If the jury finds these "men" not guilty or they aquit them, then there is no justice anywhere!
God bless,
Mama san

[suziwong]

Jury find them not guilty !! I can not believe this !!

They decided I am afraid they will eat Seagal !!!!

Unbeliveble !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can not understand !!
I don't believe this !! Why Steven pay a money some of them ???
Steven is sooooooo proud !! So proud !!!!!!!!!!!! But the others not !!
I guess this is rule of the play !!
in oneness

[Amos Stevens]

Thanks furrball & Suziwong

[Lotussan]

I don't think the things they think he is lying about are lies at all, I think they are simply attempts to be protective about his life and guard his family...Sure, he's probably really good at being evasive, and secretive, after all, acting is like that...
Just proves he's a GOOD actor, like we have always known....
As for why he paid them, well, when someone threatens you and your family, maybe you get bothered enough to pay them, I don't know...
I get really sick of reading all this anti Seagal stuff, and although I do like to know what's going on, I just don't think that these press people really care to understand Steven at all...
I hope he gets to live in peace, and these mafia people get what they deserve, that's all....

[nashpl]

The Canadian movie director is not even famous, and probably knows nothing about Steven Seagal. What a laugh him trying to call Steven a liar. Witnesses such as these will do nothing for the mafia case. Notice that no well known director or actor from Steven's movies has come forward to call him a liar.

Nash.

[suziwong]

Another Article From New York Post:
---------------------------------------------------------------

THICK-HEADED THESP TAKES IT ALL PERSONALLY

By STEVE DUNLEAVY

February 25, 2003 -- WHEN veteran television producer John Parsons called me, I was extremely flattered.
"Steven Seagal wants to talk to you. He wants to do a movie with you," Parsons said.

A reporter was gonna make a buck off of a movie Seagal would produce? I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

But at that particular time, my day job demanded that I go to South America. Parsons later told me, "Steven Seagal is really pissed."

I was apologetic.

But months later, I got the impression that not only did Seagal still carry a grudge, maybe he was sending me a message.

Because in his 1996 film "The Glimmer Man," which the tough-guy actor produced and starred in, there was a shocking slaughter. The victim - a Mr. Dunleavy.

Dunleavy is not a name you get out of the telephone directory.

"Steven Seagal - he's completely delusional," said James Daluise, the designer and artist who was a defense witness yesterday in the racketeering case against Peter Gotti and six other gentlemen.

Seagal claims the group tried to muscle its way into the film industry by extorting him.

But, like Daluise, I think the Buddhist bozo with a screw loose has a scary imagination.

"Seagal wants to be a mobster, he wants to be an Asian warrior and wants to be reincarnated," Daluise said.

"At one time, when I believe he called himself ‘Rimpocha,' he demanded that 50 people kiss his hand."

Daluise, a guy who knows his way around the city, says: "I don't think drugs are involved." He said Seagal has been "totally delusional" since he and his wife divorced.

Daluise was not at the Gotti trial yesterday to be a rat - but he did prove that one accuser's out to lunch and that the feds' allegations against these "mobsters" are nothing more than delusions.

As defense attorney Joe Tacopina put it, "So far, when it comes to violence, we have not had a hangnail."
-------------------------------------------

[Catlady]

Anyone that are friends with this group has to say Steven is a liar.

[Catlady]

Thanks Suzi

[suziwong]

Thank you too cat lady!!

But news is not good !! Nobody like him !! I can not understand this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a job this !!!!!!!!!!! God damn all of them !!

[Mama San]

...."At one time, when I believe he called himself ‘Rimpocha,' he demanded that 50 people kiss his hand."....

The idiot doesn't even know how to spell the word!
Hey stupid, it's RINPOCHE !

Steve Dunleavy? A half-baked jerk that gives the printed word a bad name! He just saw a chance to jump on the bandwagon
against Steven. He sure made himself "look" important by saying those things, didn't he? He's less important than a garter snake in the garden full of garter snakes!
As for the character in "GlimmerMan", hogwash! Steven didn't write the story nor did he name the characters! Dunceleavy
isn't important enough to warrant recognition in a Steven Seagal film!
I seriously doubt that Dunceleavy ever got such a call!
God bless,
Mama san

[tora]

I'm fed up with this bull****.They're all idiots.

[Lotussan]

Oh, come on...Now the Feds are delusional? I think they do check these things out thorougly, before proceeding...They are NOT going to pursue bogus claims just for fun! That is unbelievable! Sheesh!