Philadelphia- After protracted litigation, Philadelphia Magazine settled — on the day a jury was to be selected — inthe case of model Angela Izzo, whom the magazine featured in a nude color centerfold in February 2000 without her permission.

“The settlement provided Angela everything she wanted to restore and protect her reputation,” said attorney Paul R. Rosen, of the Philadelphia law firm Spector Gadon & Rosen, P.C., who represented Izzo. Shown lying on a massage table with her eyes closed, the image had been snapped and published without Izzo’s consent and without obtaining a signed release. Izzo obtained an undisclosed financial settlement, a letter ofapology from Philadelphia Magazine, and a quarter page color apology in the Mailboxes section in the magazine’s just-published September 2005 issue.

The apology reads: “The photograph of Angela Izzo published on pages 74-75 of the February 2000 issue of Philadelphia magazine was published without knowledge that Ms. Izzo did not consent, which was an unfortunate mistake which is regrettable and for which we are sorry.” The letter of apology is co-signed by Philadelphia magazine and photographer Pascal Blancon. Said Rosen, “The case sends a clear message to photographers and publishers that they cannot assume that consent is someone else’s responsibility without significant exposure. Now that a formal apology has been delivered to Angela Izzo and is published in Philadelphia Magazine documenting that the photograph was published without consent, no one will be able to republish that photograph again. That is all Angela wanted to accomplish, to restore her reputation, and to document that she would never permit any naked image of her body to appear publicly.” During the shoot for the article on spa treatments, Angela was posing under a water massage with her arms covering her breasts. At one point, photographer Blancon asked Angela to remove her arms from her breasts, and when she objected, he assured her there would be no publishing of the picture showing any nudity. Angela trusted the assurances that the photograph would not be published in Philadelphia Magazine. However, Philadelphia Magazine ran the nude color photo across two pages as a centerfold, without a release and without any prior notice to Angela or her agency, and promoted the magazine by issuing a press release advertising the picture as “Philadelphia Magazine’s most provocative shot ever.”

According to the suit, the magazine published Angela’s photograph as its first all-nude centerfold color photograph togenerate increased sales and exposure. Upon seeing the spread when she received a copy of the magazine in the mail, Angela was mortified and called her mother, her agency, and her fiance to warn them of the unauthorizedpublishing of the photograph. Additionally, under the terms of the settlement, Angela will be given all negatives, films, and prints, and a certification from Philadelphia Magazine and the photographer that they have no further images from the spa shoot in their possession. According to the Honorable Maurino J. Rossanese, who presided over the commencement of the trial, “I think it was a just resolution of the matter.”