Damn!! Penthouse pictures of Kournikova are fake! - 07/05/2002 10:18
In reply to:NEW YORK (AP) - The daughter-in-law of fashion designer Luciano Benetton sued Penthouse magazine Monday, saying topless pictures supposedly of tennis player Anna Kournikova actually were photographs of her.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin ordered the magazine to temporarily stop distributing the June issue to newsstands and blocked it from putting pictures on a Web site.
The judge suggested the magazine had at least acted recklessly and said Judith Soltesz-Benetton, 28, would suffer irreparably if Penthouse sent the pictures beyond its current distribution of 1.2 million homes and newsstands.
"The way Penthouse has used this shows me Penthouse doesn't really care whether it's true or not, only whether it will sell issues and get people to the Web site," Chin said.
The judge said it was obvious the pictures were not of Kournikova. He ruled after hearing arguments, reading the lawsuit and studying the photographs.
Kournikova, 20, through an agent had denied the photographs were of her.
Penthouse lawyer Victor Kovner agreed it seemed the topless pictures were not of Kournikova, but he said the magazine would prove at a hearing next week that it acted responsibly.
Kovner said it was most likely an "honest error."
"It will be rectified as promptly as the magazine can do that," he said.
Soltesz-Benetton was shocked to learn that a photographer had taken a dozen topless photographs without her knowledge when she was in Florida seven years ago, according to her attorney.
"She's not happy being topless in Penthouse," said lawyer Judd Burstein.
I was looking forward to this issue...
