Naomi Campbell sentenced to 6 months for paparazzi assault

(ANSA) - Lipari, July 31 - Top model Naomi Campbell was convicted Friday of scratching an eye of a paparazzo photographer in 2009 and sentenced to a six months suspended prison term.
    The verdict at the court in the Sicilian town of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto related to an incident Aug. 5, 2009, when the model together with her then boyfriend, Russian billionaire Vladimir Doronin, left a yacht moored off the Sicilian island of Lipari to visit the local port town and a photographer, Gaetano Di Giovanni, took several photos of her as she strolled through the narrow streets.
    Campbell laid into the photographer with her handbag and scratched one of his eyes, meaning he required medical treatment and three days to recover, the court heard.
    The model's lawyers subsequently reached an agreement with the photographer so that he withdrew charges he had pressed against Campbell but prosecutor Francesco Massara ordered the trial to go ahead anyway in the public interest because of the gravity of the wounding charges against her, judicial sources said.