A New Jersey man who says he was beaten during an episode of MTV’s Jersey Shore has lost his bid to stop the release of video footage depicting the brawl. In a Tom’s River courtroom on Monday, Stephen Izzo, 26, of Berkeley, N.J., tried to stop distribution of the DVD box set of the first season of the popular reality series, due out Monday, because it shows him being knocked unconscious by cast member Ronnie Magro after he used racial slurs against Ronnie’s bodyguard.
Izzo argued that Ortiz shouldn’t be allowed to profit from footage of the Sept. 4 fight in Seaside Heights, where the show was taped, or the subsequent episode in which Ronnie brags about the beating. The episode, “One Shot,” shows the cast members hanging out at a local nightclub. After Snooki begins making out with a man, a “rather harsh verbal altercation” ensues with the man’s girlfriend and her friends, including Izzo. Allegedly, bodyguards employed by the show intervened and started choking Izzo, before Ronnie got involved and punched Izzo in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.
“After punching plaintiff, defendant Ronnie Ortiz ran back to the MTV group screaming in a bragging euphoria how he had knocked out plaintiff with ‘one shot,’” the complaint read. “What you have is a criminal act that MTV orchestrated and had the ability to prevent, and are profiting from,” says Izzo’s attorney, Eugene LaVergne.
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Joseph Foster disagrees, saying Izzo “failed to demonstrate any financial or irreparable harm” would be caused by the release of the DVD.
MTV producers blurred Izzo’s face, but he argued that he was still recognizable.