According to a past lawsuit, a man accused Katie Ginella of calling the police to falsely report a crime. Meanwhile, a separate police report from 2015 indicated that Katie and her then-husband Andrew Sundseth both called the cops over a dispute about her allegedly cheating.
Katie joined the latest season of Real Housewives of Orange County as a main castmate. She has feuded with Heather Dubrow over the claim that the actress called the paparazzi to photograph her and her husband.
In Touch obtained court docs claiming Katie was sued in March 2016 by a man named Sidnei Silva.
Sidnei said in the lawsuit that he and Katie had a roadway incident in April of the year before. According to him, Katie followed him to his home and “parked her vehicle behind” the van he used for work.
“[Katie] exited her vehicle and confronted [Sidnei] aggressively,” the lawsuit alleged. He purportedly then took out his phone to record Katie “in an effort to protect himself,” prompting her to call the police to “falsely” report the crime.
The man claimed Katie accused him of preventing her from departing the scene. But Sidnei said he in no way did this.
“When police arrived minutes later … [Katie] again communicated to them that [Sidnei] had blocked her path and prevented her from getting inside her vehicle and leaving,” the lawsuit went on. “As a result of [Katie’s] allegations, the police initially arrested [Sidnei] for false imprisonment, disorderly conduct, and reckless driving … Upon further investigation, the police determined that [Katie] was the primary aggressor and that her allegations against [Sidnei] were false.”
“As a result of the investigation initiated by [Katie’s] call and her subsequent false allegations, [Sidnei] was thrown to the ground, injured and arrested,” said Sidnei, claiming he was forced to hire attorneys to fight charges that were later dismissed, spending $12,625 on lawyer fees.
He accused her of slander and said she should pay his legal fees. The man sought more than $100,000 in damages. The court docket indicated that Katie didn’t respond to his case, and the default judgment was $112,945.00 in 2018.
Sidnei also sued the officer involved in the arrest. In this lawsuit, he alleged that his brother was killed by a texting driver in the past. On the day of the incident, Sidnei allegedly saw that Katie was texting while driving as several kids were in her car, and he shook his head at her, prompting her to follow him.
“[Katie] parked behind Silva, got out of her car, leaving the children inside, and screamed at him. Confused by the woman’s behavior — after all, she was the one who had endangered the public and the children in her car by texting while driving — Silva began recording the event with his cell phone,” said the lawsuit.
The police officer and Sidnei agreed to dismiss the suit in 2018.
Around the same time, In Touch also obtained a Georgia police report indicating that Cobb County Police responded to a phone call from the home Katie shared with then-husband Andrew.
Per the report, police officers met with Katie and Andrew “who had both called 911 after having a dispute.”
Andrew told officers that the dispute was about Katie “cheating on him with another man.”
“[Andrew] said he suspects the cheating has been going on for months after reading text messages between his wife and the man she has been seeing. [Andrew] said during the argument he attempted to grab his wife’s cell phone from her while she was still holding it. [Andrew] said he pulled on the phone causing his wife to be pulled and fall to the ground,” said the report. “After getting the cell phone from his wife, [Andrew] said his wife began slapping him on the top of the head in an attempt to get the phone back. [Andrew] said he did not want his wife to go to jail.”
According to Katie’s account, Andrew attempted to grab her cell phone. He allegedly pulled the phone as she held onto it, and this caused her to get pulled as well.
“[Katie] said she slapped at her husband while attempting to hold onto the phone. [Katie] did not want to press charges,” the report added. An officer said, “I saw no injury to [Andrew] or [Katie]. Both said they were able to call 911 without interference from the other.”
A police officer spoke to their then 11-year-old kid, who told authorities he saw his mom hitting Andrew while having a dispute over the phone. According to the report, both Katie and Andrew told cops they didn’t have any history of violence together, and she agreed to leave their house to settle the dispute. They both also reportedly agreed to leave the kids with Andrew that day.
Andrew ended up filing for divorce in February 2016.