Penthouse apologises over Kournikova 'topless photos' fiasco

Penthouse magazine has apologised for misidentifying topless pictures of the daughter-in-law of fashion designer Luciano Benetton as those of Anna Kournikova.

Penthouse's statement was released a day after Judith Soltesz-Benetton sued Penthouse, seeking a minimum of $10m (€11m) in damages.

Her attorney, Judd Burstein, claimed the magazine knew about the mistake weeks ago, but published the photos anyway.

"We deeply regret this unintentional error and offer our heartfelt apologies to both women," the magazine said in a statement. In over 30 years of publishing this magazine, we have never made an error of anything approaching this magnitude."

In the statement, Penthouse said it had examined the purported images Kournikova in "painstaking detail" and received assurances from the photographer before deciding they were genuine. "We were wrong," the magazine said.

A spokesman for the management firm that represents Kournikova says she has filed a suit in federal court in Los Angeles against General Media Communications Inc, owner and operator of Penthouse. No amount of damages has been given.

"The complaint is for defamation, false light invasion of privacy, misappropriation of identity and various other violations of Miss Kournikova's rights under federal and state law," said David Schwab of California-based company Octagon, which represents the 20-year-old tennis player.

In response to Soltesz-Bennetton's suit, US District Judge Denny Chin ordered the magazine to temporarily stop distributing the June issue to newsstands and blocked it from putting pictures on a website.

Chin ruled Soltesz-Benetton, 28, would suffer irreparably if Penthouse sent the pictures beyond its current distribution of 1.2 million homes and newsstands.

Soltesz-Benetton claims she was shocked to learn that a photographer had taken a dozen topless photographs without her knowledge when she was in Florida seven years ago. Kournikova had denied through an agent that the photographs were of her.