Tom Sandoval has confirmed to a Los Angeles judge that he will be representing himself in ex-flame Rachel “Raquel” Leviss‘ ongoing revenge porn lawsuit against him and Ariana Madix.
Nearly a year after Rachel, 30, accused the 42-year-old Vanderpump Rules alum and his former girlfriend of invasion of privacy and eavesdropping for the alleged sharing of an NSFW video taken of her amid her and Sandoval’s affair, Sandoval filed a substitution of attorney notice after parting ways with attorney Varand Gourjian of the law firm Gourjian Law Group.
According to court documents obtained by In Touch Weekly on December 11, Sandoval had been working with Varand and his partner, Tara Karamians, for months after previously retaining lawyer Matt Geragos to help him with the case. Now, Tom has no legal counsel and will be representing himself as the case moves forward.
Along with his substitution of attorney notice, Sandoval notified the legal teams of both Rachel and Ariana of his absence of legal representation.
As Pump Rules fans will recall, Sandoval called out Matt on Instagram in July after headlines claimed he was suing Ariana, 39.
“Late Tuesday afternoon, my attorney, Matt Geragos, whose advice I trusted, called me about the cross-complaint in the lawsuit against myself and Ariana. He assured me that the action was customary and strictly preventative in these types of lawsuits and urged me to agree to it. The words ‘new lawsuit’ or ‘suing’ were not articulated to me,” he explained. “In no way am I suing Ariana.”
Sandoval then shared that he had dismissed the case against Ariana and parted ways with the attorney.
“I hold no ill will or vindictiveness toward Ariana. Now, by removing both the cross-complaint and the attorney who recommended it, I hope to get through this case quickly, so that Ariana and I can both finally MOVE ON with our lives,” he shared.
Following the filing of Rachel’s case, both Sandoval and Ariana unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss the case, and Ariana currently has a pending appeal on a court ruling that did not grant her request.
“I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display, or show the videos to anyone else,” Ariana recently told the court. “To be clear, I only saw the video of [Rachel] … in places secluded from others.”
In Rachel’s case, she claimed Sandoval recorded her in a compromising position without consent, and that Ariana obtained the videos and sent them to herself and others.
“It is not just that [Ariana] had discovered the recordings and confronted me about their contents. If that were all that happened, [Ariana] would not have been named in this lawsuit. But that is not all that happened,” Rachel stated in her own court documents. “I was in a state of extreme distress as a result of the events described in the lawsuit, and I entered treatment in an extremely dark and scary place mentally. My symptoms included severe emotional distress, physical manifestations of such distress, anxiety, shock, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, powerless, sleeplessness, nightmares, and loss of enjoyment of life.”
Vanderpump Rules season 12 will return to Bravo next year with an all-new cast.
