Washington, Aug. 18 (ANI): Actor Steven Seagal holds the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responsible for film studios' indifference towards him, and feels that he deserves an official apology from the investigating agency.

The FBI had investigated Seagal several years ago in connection with several shady endeavours, including a 2002 plot to frighten two reporters out of writing unflattering stories about him and his ex-business partner.

"False FBI accusations fuelled thousands of articles saying that I terrorize journalists and associate with the Mafia," E!online quoted the 56-year-old actor as telling the Los Angeles Times.

"These kinds of inflammatory allegations scare studio heads and independent producers-and kill careers," he added.

Seagal, who was cleared in 2004 of any wrongdoing, laughed off the suggestion that he had hired Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano who is currently in federal prison awaiting trial on numerous other unrelated charges.

He said that despite his willingness to co-operate with the FBI, the investigators were not interested in hearing what he had to say.

"The FBI didn't want to know. It would've been very easy to prove if Pellicano was calling me or if I was calling him. The FBI subpoenas phone records every day. Why not mine? You have to ask yourself: If there was enough probably cause to raid Pellicano, why not raid me too?" he said.

In the light of his meeting with two of his attorneys and Stanley Ornellas, the FBI agent in charge of the case, on October 20, 2004, Seagal claimed that the investigators were showing apathetic behaviour towards him because they were well aware that he had nothing to do with their case.

"The last thing Stan said to me was, 'We know you had nothing to do with it,'" he recalled.

Seagal, who has been involved in the straight-to-DVD genre of late, feels that it would serve him well in the public eye and put him back in big-league Hollywood's good graces if the FBI confess to needlessly dragging his name through the mud. (ANI)