Rachel “Raquel” Leviss has been granted the right to continue suing her ex Tom Sandoval and former best friend Ariana Madix for alleged revenge porn.
In April, Sandoval filed to dismiss Leviss’ lawsuit, claiming it was a “thinly veiled attempt to extend her fame and to rebrand herself as the victim instead of the other woman.”
However, according to court documents obtained Friday by Page Six, a Los Angeles judge ruled that Leviss was free to pursue her claims of eavesdropping and invasion of privacy.
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“Any person who is injured by a CIPA [California’s Invasion of Privacy Act] violation is permitted to bring a civil action against the person who committed the violation,” the judge stated.
“‘Communication’ as used in [CIPA] is not limited to conversations or oral communications but
rather encompasses any communication, regardless of its form, where any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto.”
“If the act covers eavesdropping on or recording of a telephone call, it surely covers the nonconsensual recording of the most intimate and private form of communication between two people.”
In her lawsuit, Leviss claimed she and Sandoval engaged in numerous private and confidential video calls from 2022 to 2023 and that unbeknownst to her and without her consent, Sandoval recorded their calls.
Leviss claimed Sandoval kept the videos on his phone and that his girlfriend at the time, Ariana Madix, discovered the videos and sent them to herself.
Leviss believes Madix distributed the videos to other people, too; however, Madix — a co-defendant in the suit — denied the claims in April, describing the lawsuit as “an abuse of the legal process.”
In court documents obtained by Page Six, the new “Love Island USA” host argued that Leviss “seeks to punish” and “blame” her “for the negative reaction [Leviss] received as a result of her affair with” Sandoval.
The Los Angeles judge who gave Leviss the green light to move forward with her lawsuit, however, reasoned that “[Leviss] sufficiently alleges a cause of action for intrusion upon seclusion against Sandoval.
“Sandoval penetrated [Leviss’] zone of sensory privacy surrounding in violation of social norms, based on her allegation that Sandoval ‘secretly record[ed] their private communications and … captur[ed] sexually explicit footage of [Leviss] without her knowledge or consent,'” they added.
The judge also noted that “the alleged intrusion was in a manner highly offensive to a reasonable person, based on [Leviss’] allegation that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy such that their private conversations would remain private and that she was not being secretly recorded.”
The judge, however, wasn’t completely on the “Vanderpump Rules” alum’s side, as they considered Sandoval’s demurrer to Leviss’ claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, explaining that she “fails to allege her emotional distress was proximately caused by Sandoval’s conduct, or that Sandoval’s conduct, namely the alleged sexually explicit recordings, were made with the intention of inflicting injury to [Leviss] or with the realization that injury would result from the act of recording [Leviss].”
“Further,” the judge went on, “[Leviss’] Complaint alleges that the sexually explicit recordings were not disseminated by Sandoval, but rather discovered by Madix when she searched through Sandoval’s phone when it purportedly fell from his pocket during a performance at Tom Tom.”
“Further, [Leviss’] Complaint alleges on information and belief that it was Madix, not Sandoval, who distributed and/or showed the alleged sexually explicit videos to others without Plaintiff’s knowledge or consent.”
The judge added that while Leviss argues “Sandoval’s recording and failure to secure the pornographic videos” of her led to her “emotional distress,” her case “does not affirmatively make such a factual allegation.”
Therefore, the judge gave Leviss 20 days to amend her complaint and substantiate those specific allegations.
She originally brought forth the allegations in February.
News of her affair with Sandoval came to light in March 2023, leading to his breakup with Madix after a nearly 10-year relationship.
The affair also effectively ended Leviss and Madix’s friendship, and the latter went on to describe the former as a “f–king rat.”
