He was asked to fork over $150,000 dollars to the mob for each film he made. It was all done reminiscent of a crime movie. He was escorted to a car where he was threatened if he didn’t pay up.
This dated back to when he worked with Julius Nasso, who was a film producer, but also part of the Gambino Family. At that time they were friends and Nasso helped get Seagal started. But then things soured between them. Seagal broke ties. As Nasso saw it he owed them money for at least 10 films. That was likely just for starters. Tough guy Seagal was actually scared at the shakedown and agreed to it. Later a wire tap was made and this all went to court.
Supposedly Seagal had been given a loan by Nasso and Nasso wanted to be paid back. Seagal said he already paid him back 700,000 but they were shaking him down for more.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Seagal likely did get a loan when they were friends. But when the friendship soured, Nasso wanted his money back. Seagal paid, but they actually intended to extort more out of him by getting back $150,000 for each of the first 10 films. Then a regular fee after that. The wire tap seemed to indicate they were interested in getting more than just loan money back. They likely wanted Seagal as a controlled actor.
Seagal wiggled his way out of this one. But he had to know who he was working with on the first 10 films. I’m sure he also borrowed money from Nasso and didn’t pay it back until he was threatened. Once they realized they could get him to pay up, it would become a regular thing.