Hundreds of Rabbi Barry Freundel’s mikvah victims were able to successfully have their class action lawsuits moved back to the D.C. Superior Court, all against Freundel’s wishes, according to a report in Courthouse News. Freundel is serving six and a half years in prison following his May 12 sentencing after he entered a guilty plea that he video recorded as many as 150 women in the mikvah since 2009.

The former spiritual leader of Kesher Israel in Washington, D.C. for 25 years was arrested last October after a video recording device was found hidden inside a clock radio at the National Capital Mikvah. Freundel recorded women undressing and entering and leaving the shower. Some of them were his students or congregations members, others were not.

After his arrest, two groups of women filed class action suits against the rabbi in D.C. Superior Court. The allegations of the two groups overlapped, but the legality of the proposed class action suits differed. One class action suit involved only women who were video recorded while the other includes any and all women who used the National Capital Mikvah during the rabbi’s stewardship, according to the Courthouse News Service.

It is expected that both suits will be combined. Freundel, however, had successfully petitioned the court to move the class actions to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act. That was, however, overruled as lead plaintiffs in both class actions asked that the case be moved to DC Superior Court. This decision was based on the Class Action Fairness Act’s “interest of justice exception.”  This means that the federal courts can refuse to exercise jurisdiction over a dispute if that dispute is local and if between one third and two thirds of the proposed class members are citizens of the state where the suit was brought forward. In this case, it would involve the District of Columbia.