Raquel Leviss has the right to continue suing Tom Sandoval for alleged revenge porn

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By Bernie Zilio

Rachel “Raquel” Leviss has won the right to continue suing her ex Tom Sandoval and his former best friend Ariana Madix for alleged revenge porn.

In April, Sandoval filed a motion to dismiss Leviss' lawsuit, saying it was a “thinly veiled attempt to expand her fame and rebrand herself as the victim instead of the other woman.” .

However, according to court documents obtained by Page Six on Friday, a Los Angeles judge ruled that Leviss was free to pursue her allegations of eavesdropping and invasion of privacy.

“Any person injured by a violation of CIPA (California's Invasion of Privacy Act) is entitled to bring a civil action against the person who committed the violation,” the judge said.

“‘Communication’ as used in (CIPA) is not limited to conversations or oral communications, but
rather encompasses any communication, regardless of its form, for which one of the parties to the communication wishes it to be limited to the parties thereto.

“If the law covers the listening or recording of a telephone call, surely it covers the non-consensual recording of the most intimate and private form of communication between two people.”

In her lawsuit, Leviss claimed that she and Sandoval had numerous private and confidential video calls from 2022 to 2023 and that without her knowledge or consent, Sandoval recorded their calls.

Leviss claimed that 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 also distributed the videos to other people; However, Madix – a co-defendant in the lawsuit – denied the allegations in April, describing the trial 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 his lawsuit, however, found that “(Leviss) sufficiently alleges a cause of action for intrusion into seclusion against Sandoval.”

“Sandoval entered (Leviss’) sensory privacy zone in violation of social norms, based on his allegation that Sandoval “secretly recorded their private communications and…captured sexually explicit images of (Leviss) at his without 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') claim that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy, such that their conversations private information would remain private and that it was not secretly recorded.”

The judge, however, wasn't entirely on the side of the “Vanderpump Rules” alum as he considered Sandoval's objection to Leviss' allegation that she intentionally caused emotional distress, explaining that she “fails to allege that her emotional distress was proximately caused by Sandoval's conduct.” , or that Sandoval's conduct, namely the allegedly sexually explicit recordings, was carried out with the intent to inflict harm on (Leviss) or with the realization that harm would result from the act of recording (Leviss ).

“Furthermore,” the judge continued, “(Leviss's) complaint alleges that the sexually explicit recordings were not distributed by Sandoval, but rather discovered by Madix when she searched Sandoval's phone while he allegedly fell out of his pocket during a performance at Tom. To Mr.”

“Furthermore, (Leviss's) complaint alleges, based on information and belief, that it was Madix, not Sandoval, who distributed and/or showed the alleged sexually explicit videos to others at the “without the knowledge or consent of the applicant.”

The judge added that while Leviss argues that Sandoval's “recording and failure to secure his pornographic videos” led to his “emotional distress,” his case “does not affirmatively make such a factual allegation.”

Therefore, the judge gave Leviss 20 days to amend his complaint and substantiate these specific allegations.

She initially came forward with the allegations in February.

News of his affair with Sandoval was revealed in March 2023, leading to his breakup with Madix after dating for almost 10 years.

The affair also ended Leviss and Madix's friendship, and the latter later described the former as a “fucking rat.”