Federal court declines to block distribution of topless photo

Wednesday November 27, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A federal appeals court declined Wednesday to bar Penthouse from redistributing photos the magazine claimed in its June issue showed tennis player Anna Kournikova topless.

The photos actually are of 28-year-old Judith Soltesz-Benetton, the daughter-in-law of fashion designer Luciano Benetton.

Kournikova asked a Los Angeles federal judge to bar Penthouse from further distribution of the photos. U.S. District Judge Gary Feess declined, as did the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday.

In a brief order, the San Francisco-based appeals court said the issue was ``largely moot because General Media has stopped distributing the magazine in which the photographs appeared, the possibility of further distribution is speculative and General Media issued an apology on its Web site and in the August issue of Penthouse magazine.''

Soltesz-Benetton and Penthouse's owner and operator, General Media Communications Inc., settled a lawsuit over the dispute for an undisclosed sum.

The case is Kournikova v. General Media, 02-56421.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)