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

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

In April, Sandoval moved to dismiss Leviss’ lawsuit, saying it was a “thinly veiled attempt to spread her fame and rebrand herself as a victim rather than another woman.”

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

“Any person who has been injured as a result of CIPA [California’s Invasion of Privacy Act] It is permissible to bring a civil action against the person who committed the infringement,” the judge said.

“Communication” as used in [CIPA] not limited to conversations or oral communication but
rather, it includes any communication, regardless of its form, where either party to the communication intends it to be limited to the parties to that communication.”

“If the statute covers the tapping or recording of telephone conversations, it certainly covers the senseless recording of the most intimate and private form of communication between two people.”

In her lawsuit, Leviss alleged that she and Sandoval had multiple private and confidential video calls between 2022 and 2023, and that Sandoval recorded their conversations without her knowledge or consent.

Leviss claimed that Sandoval kept the videos on his phone and that his then-girlfriend, Ariana Madix, discovered them and sent them to herself.

Leviss believes that Madix also sent videos to other people; 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 was “trying 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 proceed with the lawsuit, however, argued that “[Leviss] sufficiently raises a cause of action for trespass against Sandoval.

“Sandoval has infiltrated [Leviss’] surrounding sensory privacy zone in violation of social norms, based on her allegation that Sandoval was “secretly recording”[ed] their private communications and… interception[ed] sexually explicit recordings [Leviss] without her knowledge and consent,” they added.

The judge also noted that “the alleged intrusion was highly offensive to a reasonable person, based on [Leviss’] the allegation that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy that their private conversations would remain private and that she was not secretly recorded.”

The judge wasn’t entirely on the “Vanderpump Rules” alum’s side, however, as he considered Sandoval’s objection to Leviss’ claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, explaining that she “does not maintain that her emotional distress was directly caused by Sandoval’s conduct or that Sandoval’s conduct, namely the alleged sexually explicit recordings were made with the intent to cause harm [Leviss] or with the knowledge that bodily harm would result from the recording [Leviss]”

“Furthermore,” the judge continued, “[Leviss’] The complaint alleged that Sandoval did not distribute the sexually explicit recordings, but were discovered by Madix when she was looking through Sandoval’s phone, which allegedly fell out of his pocket during an appearance on Tom Tom.”

“Next, [Leviss’] “The complaint is based on the information and belief that Madix, and not Sandoval, distributed and/or showed the alleged sexually explicit videos to others without plaintiff’s knowledge or consent.”

The judge added that while Leviss argues that Sandoval’s “recording and failure to secure her pornographic videos” led to her “emotional distress,” her case “does not support such a fact-based allegation.”

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

She originally presented the allegations in February.

News of her affair with Sandoval came to light in March 2023, leading to his breakup with Madix after an almost 10-year relationship.

The affair also effectively ended Leviss and Madix’s friendship, with the latter labeling the former a “f***ing rat king.”