Gear editor-in-chief Bob Guccione Jr. poured salt in the wound by jokingly listing Spelling on the masthead as a senior editor.

In a bid to shed her good-girl image, Jessica Biel, star of TV's saccharine-sweet show 7th Heaven, poses nearly naked on the cover of Gear's March issue and in several other sexy shots inside.

"[Spelling] is enraged, embarrassed and upset by their claim he's a senior editor and he's appalled by this article," Spelling's lawyer, Bertram Fields, told PAGE SIX, adding that the Hollywood hit-maker is planning to sue for defamation, false endorsement and violation of publicity rights.

In a letter Fields sent to Gear, he calls the magazine "sleazy" and denies the "false assertion" that Spelling told Biel he owned her. It also said that the appearance of Spelling's name on the masthead insinuates that he "approved and arranged for this reprehensible article featuring 11 nude and highly salacious photos of a minor child... an article that, in light of Ms. Biel's youth, appears to violate various criminal acts."

Guccione, for his part, is not frightened by the threats to sue, and said that although Biel was 17 at the time of the shoot, both her father and manager were present.

As for Spelling's name on the masthead, "It was a mundane joke," said Guccione. He pointed out that his own name appears on the masthead as "Bob Pinochet Jr." — a joke at the expense of his own tyrannical reputation. "We had fun with it," he added.

"As for his assertions that [Gear] is sleazy, it's like the pot calling the kettle black. We are an entertainment magazine with serious journalism. But I must have missed the serious cultural references in Melrose Place and ‘90210,'" Guccione said.

He raged on: "Here is a man that basically pimps his own daughter and turns her into a cardboard cutout slut," referring to Tori Spelling's long run on "90210."

Meanwhile, Biel, desperate to get fired from the show because she is getting typecast as a church-going goodie two-shoes, is under contract to Spelling for two more years — and it doesn't look like they are planning to let the precocious eye-popper quit early.

"We look forward to working with her," Spelling told Gear in a faxed statement.— Page Six Staff