Penthouse admits 'Pornikova' blunder

The collapse of the top-shelf magazine Penthouse loomed last night as a grovelling apology failed to head off two £7m lawsuits brought after it published 10 pages of what it wrongly claimed were topless photographs of the Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova on a Florida beach.

"In over 30 years of publishing this magazine, we have never made an error of anything approaching this magnitude," the magazine said in a statement faxed to the Guardian, conceding that Kournikova was not the woman pictured sunbathing. It did not say whom the photographs actually depicted.

A spokesman for General Media, the magazine's publisher, would not comment yesterday on a claim by Judith Soltesz-Benetton, 28, the daughter-in-law of the clothing tycoon Luciano Benetton, that the pictures were of her. She is suing because they were taken, allegedly, without her consent.

The editors said they had "interviewed the photographer at length" and were convinced that the pictures were of the tennis star. "We were wrong," the statement continued. "We can only say 'We're sorry'."

Ms Soltesz-Benetton and Kournikova have now both brought $10m legal actions.

It seems unlikely that Penthouse will be able to pay. General Media's auditors recently announced that the company would probably be unable to meet the interest payments on its $52m debts.

Last month Bob Guccione, Penthouse's founder and owner, said he thought there was no future in the adult magazine market.

"It is the proliferation of more explicit images in television, videos and the internet that have made the difference," he said. His magazine found a niche printing more explicit photos than Playboy.

On Monday a federal judge in Manhattan concluded that the pictures were "clearly not" of Kournikova and ordered the magazine to temporarily stop distributing the June issue.

The case has been dubbed "Pornikova".