Alon Alexander, considered one of three brothers going through federal intercourse trafficking expenses, was denied bail in a Miami courtroom on Friday after a choose dominated that his request for at-home pretrial detention allowed an excessive amount of danger that he may flee the nation.
Mr. Alexander is now set to be transferred to New York, the place the fees have been introduced final month by Damian Williams, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, and James E. Dennehy, the top of the F.B.I.’s New York workplace. His brother, Oren Alexander, can have one other listening to on the identical matter in Miami on Tuesday after considered one of his attorneys requested a health-related extension.
Oren and Alon, twins who’re 37, have been arrested in Miami Seashore in December together with their older brother, Tal Alexander, 38, following months of mounting public allegations. All three are accused of utilizing their wealth and standing to lure, drug and sexually assault dozens of girls, in response to an indictment made public on the day of their arrest. They’re anticipated to be arraigned, and to enter pleas, in a Manhattan federal courtroom.
Till this summer season, Oren and Tal Alexander have been among the many most profitable actual property brokers within the nation. Recognized for brokering multimillion offers in New York and Miami, they reached the highest ranks at Douglas Elliman, one of many nation’s largest brokerages. In 2019, they helped dealer the sale of an almost $240 million penthouse in Manhattan — on the time, the most costly residential sale in U.S. historical past. They later co-founded their very own actual property brokerage, Official. Alon Alexander, Oren’s twin, is an govt on the household’s non-public safety agency.
Along with the federal intercourse trafficking expenses, the twins additionally face state expenses in Florida for sexual battery, stemming from three separate incidents. Oren Alexander faces expenses in all three. Alon Alexander faces expenses in a single.
Oren and Alon Alexander have been each current in courtroom on Friday, as have been their mother and father, Shlomo and Orly Alexander; Alon Alexander’s spouse, Shani Zigron; and Oren Alexander’s spouse, Kamila Hansen, who lately gave delivery to the couple’s first baby. The brothers arrived in khaki jail fits and shackles on their wrists and ankles. Orly Alexander may very well be seen crying as her sons entered the courtroom; Kamila Hansen and Shani Zigron, each style fashions, wore face masks. Shlomo Alexander donned a yarmulke within the presence of the choose, however eliminated it as quickly because the listening to concluded.
Shlomo and Orly Alexander immigrated to the US from Israel earlier than their sons have been born and have become self-made millionaires. Orly Alexander runs Kent Safety Providers, the household’s enterprise, alongside her brother, Gil Neuman. Shlomo Alexander is an actual property developer. The couple personal a waterfront mansion in Miami’s unique Bal Harbour neighborhood that’s value an estimated $14 million.
Friday marked the second bond listening to for Alon and Oren Alexander. On Monday, Howard Srebnick, a lawyer for Alon Alexander, instructed Justice of the Peace Choose Eduardo Sanchez that the household was ready to publish limitless bond to safe the twins’ pretrial launch, including that they might not object to having bail set as excessive as $1 billion, even when it might depart the household destitute. In addition they supplied to pay for personal house detention monitoring by V2 International, a safety firm whose shareholders embrace Jim Milford, former deputy administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Donald De Lucca, former Miami Seashore police chief.
Choose Sanchez stated he would wish a number of days to contemplate the request, and ordered a second listening to. The federal government then submitted a letter, signed by federal prosecutors in each Manhattan and Miami, describing the household’s proposal as a “non-public jail” that “makes an attempt to leverage their wealth to hunt particular therapy.”
On Friday, Mr. Srebnick introduced a firmer provide to Choose Sanchez: The household would publish any sum in bail, irrespective of how excessive, and Alon Alexander can be confined to a two-bedroom residence in Miami with round the clock monitoring by V2 International.
Elizabeth Espinosa, a federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, argued that detaining the brothers at a personal house would enable them the chance to depart the nation earlier than a trial, evaluating the Alexanders’ case to different high-profile circumstances of intercourse trafficking, together with Sean Combs and Jeffrey Epstein, the place non-public detention was supplied by the defendants and denied by judges.
“There may be completely each incentive right here to flee,” Ms. Espinosa stated. “All non-public safety can do is barely scale back that head begin. They will’t stop it.”
Choose Sanchez stated he was additionally involved concerning the danger of flight, in addition to a “two-tier system of justice, one for the rich and one for individuals who aren’t rich,” and ordered Alon Alexander to stay in custody.
Oren Alexander was then known as earlier than the choose. However Richard Klugh, considered one of his attorneys, requested the courtroom for an extension, citing well being points that had prevented him from sufficiently assembly along with his consumer earlier than the listening to. Choose Sanchez granted the request, setting Oren Alexander’s third detention listening to for Tuesday.
Talking to reporters exterior the courtroom after the listening to, Mr. Srebnick stated that he was “clearly upset” within the determination, however he believed that after all three brothers arrived in New York, a choose there would rethink granting bond so they might “work with their attorneys and never be confronted with the abominable circumstances of the metro detention middle in Brooklyn.”
He added that he believed that the greater than 40 girls who’ve come ahead to accuse the brothers of assault and rape are “profiteering.” Requested if he believed that the ladies have been mendacity about their tales, Mr. Srebnick stated, “Sure. Each considered one of them.”
In keeping with the federal indictment, the three brothers conspired within the intercourse trafficking scheme for at the very least 14 years. Coordinating with different males, they organized occasions and home and worldwide journeys as bait to recruit, entice and transport girls, whom they later raped, the indictment says.
Friday’s listening to was just like Tal Alexander’s listening to in December, when the household supplied to publish $115 million in bail to safe his pretrial launch, utilizing the Bal Harbour house in addition to the headquarters of Kent Safety Providers as collateral. A federal Justice of the Peace choose, Lisette M. Reid, declared Tal Alexander a flight danger and the provide was denied.
