Naomi Campbell may want to brush up on her people skills…
On Friday, the supermodel was convicted of assault by a Sicilian court, for scratching a paparazzo’s eye in August 2009. She was sentenced to a 6 month stint in jail. However, according to reports her attorney Guido Carlo Alleva, has vowed to file an appeal.
“We are appealing the ruling surrounding the 2009 incident,” Alleva told E! News. “Due to the ongoing legal process, we cannot discuss the matter further at this time.”
As you may recall, the incident occurred when photographer, Gaetano Di Giovanni, was snapping photos of Campbell with her then-boyfriend, Russian billionaire Vladimir Doronin, as they stepped off his yacht in the Sicilian town of Lipari. Di Giovanni took photos of the lovers as they strolled the streets sight-seeing. At some point, Campbell hit the photographer with her purse, scratching his eye. He sought medical treatment, taking three days to recover from the injury.
“I had just started taking some shots of her and I did not expect such a violent reaction,” Di Giovanni told the Telegraph in 2013 after Campbell was ordered to stand trial in Italy. Campbell’s lawyers reached out to the photographer. An agreement was forged including withdrawing the charges. But, prosecutor Francesco Massara ordered the trial to move forward due to “the intensity of the charges.”
This isn’t the first time the catwalker has had a run-in with the law. In 2007, Campbell served a five-day community service sentence in New York City after pleading guilty to reckless assault for throwing her cellphone at her housekeeper. She was also fined $363 to cover the housekeeper’s medical expenses and was ordered to complete an anger management course. Arguably, the court reported her successful completion of the course. Quite probably, unless her lawyer can pull a rabbit out of his hat, Campbell could be rocking head-to-toe orange in the near future.
