Penthouse Settles Lawsuit Over Topless Pictures
Tue May 21, 9:31 AM ET
By Gail Appleson, Law Correspondent
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The daughter-in-law of Italian fashion designer Luciano Benetton, who is shown sunbathing topless in Penthouse but misidentified as Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova (news - web sites), agreed on Monday to settle her high-profile suit against the men's magazine.
Judith Soltesz-Benetton had sued Penthouse's parent company, financially troubled General Media Communications, for more than $10 million for running the unauthorized photographs. She alleged the publication of the pictures violated her privacy and that the photos were used for advertising purposes without her consent.
The settlement was announced the same day that U.S. District Judge Denny Chin had been expected to rule on whether to take the unusual step of ordering the magazine to recall the June issue carrying a dozen photographs of Soltesz-Benetton.
Financial terms of the settlement were not made public however the plaintiff's lawyer did release a letter of apology Penthouse had sent to Soltesz-Benetton agreeing to destroy some 18,000 copies of the magazine that are in the possession of the printer or distributor.
The letter, dated Monday and signed by the magazine's founder Robert Guccione, also said no further copies of the June issue or the plaintiff's pictures will ever be printed or distributed again. It is unknown how many issues have already been sold.
"This is an apology that is accepted because it is backed up by action," said Judd Burstein, Soltesz-Benetton's lawyer. "However Ms. Benetton doesn't believe the error was an innocent one."
He said his client still believes Penthouse had taken "desperate steps to help an ailing business."
Burstein said he expects Chin to approve the settlement on Tuesday.
Soltesz-Benetton, 28, who is four months pregnant and has a young son, alleged in her lawsuit that the photos were taken while she was sunbathing topless in Miami about seven years ago. She was a professional fashion model at the time and said she sunbathed topless to get an even tan.
During a hearing last week, she testified she wanted the magazine recalled because she did not want it to fall into the hands of her son or future child.
Penthouse had made the pictures from a video it purchased from a St. Louis jewelry salesman who was filming sunbathers without their knowledge. Guccione had testified that he had compared the video with Internet pictures of Kournikova, however the judge voiced skepticism during last week's hearing that the women resembled each other.
Guccione said in his letter: "We acknowledge that those pictures were taken without your knowledge or consent and that you would never have authorized their publication in Penthouse or elsewhere. We made a terrible, but wholly unintentional, error in publishing the pictures of you as Anna Kournikova."
Kournikova, who will be 21 in June, has sued Penthouse separately in a California federal court. "Our case is just beginning," said her New York lawyer Randy Mastro. "The case is still pending."
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