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Alexander brothers sex trafficking trial: The most striking revelations so far

A courtroom sketch shows brothers Tal Alexander, Alon Alexander, and Oren Alexander as prosecutor Madison Reddick Smyser delivers her opening statement in their sex-trafficking trial.
  • Prosecutors have called 21 witnesses in the Alexander brothers' sex trafficking trial.
  • Oren and Tal Alexander were top real estate agents; their brother, Alon, was a security firm exec.
  • Here are the biggest revelations from their Manhattan federal trial so far.

Are Tal and Oren Alexander — once among the nation's top luxury real estate brokers — serial predators who, together with a third brother, drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women and girls for more than a decade?

Or are they simply womanizers whose party-fueled lifestyle involved lots of consensual sex?

That's the pivotal question facing a federal jury in the Manhattan sex trafficking trial of Tal, Oren, and Oren's twin, Alon, where the siblings' defense lawyers and the US government are presenting dramatically different portrayals of the case.

The trial, which began in late January, is expected to continue into the second week of March.

A conviction could send Tal Alexander, 39, and his 38-year-old twin brothers to prison for life and mark an extraordinary downfall for the real estate agent siblings whose high-profile clients have included Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, financier Leon Black, and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

Here are some of the most striking moments from the Alexander brothers' trial so far:

Jury sees photo of "Rapists" graffiti scrawled on the door of the brothers' Southampton rental
The Alexander brothers in court

This week, a government witness described using her eyeliner to write "Rapists" on the front door of the brothers' Southampton rental. "You need to apologize," she also wrote.

It was Saturday night on Memorial Day weekend in 2009, and she was fleeing the house after witnessing a group of men, including Tal Alexander and "one of the twins," sexually assaulting a screaming woman in the backyard hot tub, she told the jury.

"She was over and over and over asking them to stop," testified the witness, Avishan Bodjnoud, now an information management executive at the United Nations.

Prosecutors showed jurors photographs of the graffiti recovered from a hard drive seized from Tal Alexander.

A second witness to the hot tub incident, herself an assault accuser, described seeing "a girl, I believe, in a green bikini with a bunch of guys on top of her."

She also described seeing a distraught female onlooker cry out, "I work for the UN, and I know what you're doing out there!"

During cross-examination, a defense lawyer for Tal Alexander challenged the UN employee's testimony that she remained silent out of fear for the brothers' power and influence.

"Were you aware that in 2009, Tal Alexander was a 21-year-old copy machine salesman?" asked the lawyer, Milton Williams.

Jurors saw emails showing Oren Alexander asking his Douglas Elliman assistants to refill his prescriptions for Ambien, a key drug in the government's case
A screenshot of a Whatsapp message from Oren Alexander to Tal Alexander.

The prescription sleep aid Ambien has figured prominently in the trial.

The jury has seen four emails from 2015 and 2016 in which Oren Alexander used his work email at Douglas Elliman — where he and Tal Alexander were star real estate brokers — to ask his assistants for help refilling his Ambien prescription.

Each time, an assistant told Oren Alexander he's out of prescriptions and needs to call his doctor or try another pharmacy.

The jury has also seen five texts from between 2017 and 2021 in which the brothers discuss Ambien. "I give u all my ambien and you do nothing to try and get some more," Oren Alexander complains to Tal Alexander in one text from 2017.

A forensic toxicologist testified during week three of the government's case that Ambien is a sedative commonly used in drug-facilitated sexual assaults.

The jury has seen other sedatives referenced in the brothers' texts, including Quaaludes, Xanax, ketamine, and GHB.

By the end of the third week of testimony, eight accusers had described being raped by one or more of the brothers after losing consciousness from a few sips of a drink.

Defense lawyers have noted that not one accuser called police or sought to take a drug test.

"You may not approve of their lifestyle," defense lawyer Teny Geragos told the jury, but "there is not a single solitary shred of evidence relating to drugging a woman for sex."

Video of the alleged rape of an intoxicated 17-year-old leaves jurors visibly upset
The third rape accuser of the Alexander brothers sex trafficking trial, testified against Oren Alexander under the pseudonym Amelia Rosen.

Jurors watched intently when shown a video of two men — one of them Alon Alexander, then 21 — having sex with an intoxicated 17-year-old in 2009.

Half of the jurors held their hands to their faces, and a middle-aged woman in the panel's second row appeared near tears, her face reddening as the footage played.

"I can hardly understand what I was saying," the girl in the video tearfully told jurors, after taking the witness stand the following day.

Now 33, she testified under the pseudonym Amelia Rosen, and told the jury she has no memory of that night or of what prosecutors called Alon Alexander's "trophy" video of her rape.

In cross-examining Rosen, Marc Agnifilo, an attorney for Oren Alexander, asked Rosen which party promoters took her to nightclubs when she was ages 15 through 17. Agnifilo also noted in his questioning that Rosen was two months shy of her 18th birthday at the time of the video.

Rape accuser describes screaming 'no'
Alon Alexander and Oren Alexander are twins.

An accuser using the pseudonym "Katie Moore" was the first government witness to testify. Moore said she was 20 years old when she met Tal and Alon Alexander at a 2012 NBA Finals viewing party at the Manhattan penthouse of actor Zac Efron.

Moore said she lost consciousness at a nightclub later that night, after sipping a drink handed to her by one of the brothers' friends.

She said she woke up naked on a bed at the Manhattan apartment Alon Alexander shared with Tal Alexander. Alon Alexander stood at the side of the bed, also naked, she said.

"I don't want to have sex with you!" she recalled telling Alon Alexander, who she said laughed, responded, "But you already did," and then continued his attack despite her screams of "No."

At some point, Moore testified, Tal Alexander walked in. "It was so weird how normal it seemed between them," Moore told the jury of the two brothers. "I think they had a conversation" as she was raped by Alon Alexander, she said.

On cross-examination, lawyers for the brothers noted that Moore didn't call the police or take a drug test. The defense also asked Moore why, hours after the alleged rape, she updated her Facebook profile photo. The photo, taken by Efron, showed her and her friend Ainsley at the actor's party.

"It was the last photo I had of me before I was raped that night," she said of the photograph. "I see someone who was much more innocent and carefree and unburdened," she said as the photograph was shown to jurors.

Oren Alexander allegedly bragged that he 'took down' a minor
Oren Alexander.

During opening statements, Assistant US Attorney Madison Reddick Smyser told the jury that the Alexander brothers "celebrated their crimes."

"For example," the prosecutor said, "after Oren and Alon sexually assaulted three high school girls in a hotel room, Oren texted a friend that he took down a 17-year-old."

Smyser said the Alexander brothers used "power, wealth, and access to lure women and girls to them" at upscale locales like the Hamptons, Miami, and Manhattan.

Prosecutors said the brothers texted about what could 'bring them down'
Brothers Oren Alexander, Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander were arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2024.

Smyser, the Manhattan federal prosecutor, told jurors during opening arguments that the Alexander brothers texted each other about their conquests, at one point saying that "the only thing that could bring them down is if some 'ho' complained."

The prosecutor said the Alexander brothers "used whatever means necessary" — including drugging victims and using "brute force" — to carry out sex attacks.

They "carried out their rapes in different ways," said Smyser. "They physically held victims down" and put drugs like GHB and Xanax in their drinks, getting the women so intoxicated that, in one instance, their victim could not stand up, she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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