April 13, 2010 | 2:36 pm

Action star Steven Seagal at center of sex lawsuit

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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Steven Seagal

The sex lawsuit filed against actor Steven Seagal looks worse than the sex scandals of late involving Tiger Woods and Jesse James. That’s because the plaintiff, 23-year-old Kayden Nguyen, a former Seagal assistant, claims he assaulted her on multiple occasions. The motive for sex and power is the same old male egotism we saw with Woods and James, but the methods of obtaining sex can be radically different for different men, and it’s crucial to know the difference.

To avoid digressing into tabloid sensationalism, I’m just going to say that Seagal deserves the benefit of the doubt—until he doesn’t. But my true motive for posting this story is more out of female solidarity because after reading Nicholas Kristof’s enlightening and important book “Half the Sky” about sex crimes inflicted upon millions of women and girls worldwide, I consider it a dereliction of duty not to give voice to these matters when they are so often veiled and silenced around the world.

And if you’re going, “Steven Seagal, the guy from ‘Under Siege’ is Jewish?” Then read this excerpt from a column by JJ editor Rob Eshman:

...really, Steven Seagal is a Jew.

I mean, he’s a Jew from Lansing, Michigan, the son of Samuel Steven Seagal (1928-1991), a high school math teacher.  His father’s parents were Russian Jews,  Nathan Siegelman - later changed to Seagal - (1892-1973) and Dora Goldstein (1894-1989). Seagal’s mother is of Irish ancestry (Jewish? Catholic?) but according to Reform Jewish law, the man is a Jew.