A Los Angeles judge has ruled to allow Rachel “Raquel” Leviss to continue with her revenge porn lawsuit against Tom Sandoval and his former girlfriend, Ariana Madix.
Weeks after Sandoval, 41, filed to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it was a “thinly veiled attempt to extend [Raquel’s] fame and to rebrand herself as the victim instead of the other woman,” a judge declared Raquel, 29, is able to pursue her claims of eavesdropping and invasion of privacy against him and Ariana, 38.
According to court documents obtained by Page Six on May 24, the judge signaled to California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), stating that the bill covers “the nonconsensual recording of the most intimate and private form of communication between two people.”
“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 explained. “‘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,” they added.
In Raquel’s lawsuit against Sandoval and Ariana, she said she and Sandoval had private and confidential FaceTime calls from 2022 to 2023, which he recorded without her consent and saved on his phone. Then, in March 2023, after Ariana discovered the NSFW clips on her then-boyfriend’s phone, Raquel claimed she sent them to herself and others.
Last month, in her own court documents, Ariana denied distributing the videos and slammed the lawsuit as “an abuse of the legal process,” saying Raquel “seeks to punish” and “blame” her “for the negative reaction [Leviss] received as a result of her affair with” Sandoval.
The judge went on to say 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 then said, “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.”
Meanwhile, in a slight win for Sandoval, it was noted that Raquel failed to prove that “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].”
Raquel has 20 days to adjust her case against Sandoval and Ariana, clarifying that her emotional distress wasn’t the result of Sandoval having the clips on his phone, but rather that Ariana had gotten a hold of them.
The Vanderpump Rules season 11 reunion special concludes tomorrow, May 28, at 8/7c on Bravo.