LOS ANGELES (CNS) - An attorney for a woman who alleged nude photos were misappropriated from her cell phone in 2015, while she was taking a class at a Santa Monica yoga studio that catered to celebrities, told a judge today that her client settled her lawsuit against the business.
The woman, identified in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit only as Jane Doe, alleged that a male front desk employee at the Golden Bridge Yoga studio accessed the photos of her sans clothes and threatened to make them public.
Attorney Jasmin Gill told Judge William Fahey that the case was resolved. No terms were divulged.
Fahey said he was keeping the Sept. 12 trial date until the dismissal papers are filed. ``That way, if the settlement blows up, you won't have to lose your place in line,” Fahey said.
The lawsuit filed Oct. 19 alleged negligence, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The plaintiff attended a class at Golden Bridge in December 2015, according to the suit. A front desk worker took her on a tour and recommended that she put her cell phone and other belongings in a space designated for clients, according to her court papers. The next day, the woman said she received an email from an unknown person who wrote, ``Photos that will ruin your music or any other career.” Attached to the email were ``several highly intimate nude photographs” of the plaintiff, according to the suit.
``If you don't want these published, I suggest you let me know,” the email sender wrote, according to the lawsuit. The woman suspected the sender was the studio's front desk worker and told the studio's manager what occurred, but nothing was done, the suit alleged. Meanwhile, the plaintiff continued to receive ``extortionary emails” from the sender, who continued to taunt her with nude photos he stole from her phone, the suit states.
The woman reported the case to Santa Monica police and the FBI, according to her court papers, which alleged that Golden Bridge was negligent in hiring, supervising and retaining the employee who allegedly obtained the plaintiff's photos.
Another woman who sued the studio, alleging similar claims related to a January 2016 class she took there, settled her lawsuit with the business last September.