Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander have been denied bail in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday, after a decide dominated that the three brothers posed each a hazard to the neighborhood and would possibly flee the nation as they awaited trial on federal sex-trafficking costs.
“The burden of the proof is powerful,” stated Decide Valerie E. Caproni of Federal District Courtroom after a three-hour listening to during which the brothers’ attorneys sought to undermine the federal government’s argument for detention, suggesting that the handfuls of girls who’ve accused them of assault have been concocting tales for revenue.
The three brothers, by way of their attorneys, have strenuously denied the fees. Oren and Tal Alexander have been, for many years, two of the nation’s most outstanding actual property brokers, brokering a few of the flashiest properties in Miami and New York. Alon Alexander, who’s Oren’s twin, was a daily fixture on the social circuit in each cities alongside his brothers.
The decide acknowledged that there was a chance of some false accusations, however cited the federal government’s assertion that greater than 40 girls had made related allegations. “And there’s a consistency within the element about how they’re lured into areas beneath the defendants’ management, then drugged and assaulted,” she stated.
Oren and Alon Alexander, twins who’re 37, have been arrested in Miami Seaside in December together with their older brother, Tal Alexander, 38, after 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 line with an indictment made public on the day of their arrest.
On the listening to on Wednesday, a prosecutor revealed that a number of of the alleged victims have been minors on the time of the assaults and rapes; the brothers have been all adults.
The three brothers stay in federal custody in Florida after waiving the fitting to be current at Wednesday’s listening to in Manhattan, the place Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander have been every interesting the denial of bail by a Miami federal decide earlier this month.
Decide Caproni stated the three males have been anticipated to be dropped at Manhattan subsequent week, and that they might make their first courtroom appearances earlier than her on Jan. 29.
Identified for brokering multimillion-dollar offers in New York and Miami, Oren and Tal Alexander reached the highest ranks at Douglas Elliman, one of many nation’s largest brokerages. In 2019, they helped dealer the sale of a virtually $240 million penthouse in Manhattan — on the time the costliest residential sale in U.S. historical past. They later based their very own actual property brokerage, Official. Alon Alexander is an government on the household’s non-public safety agency.
Decide Caproni rejected requests by the boys’s attorneys for his or her launch on a bond of greater than $115 million and a type of residence detention with non-public safety guards to forestall them from fleeing.
“The defendants argue that hazard and danger of flight may be mitigated as a result of they’ve the wealth to create, in essence, a non-public jail exterior of the Bureau of Prisons,” Decide Caproni stated.
That kind of association, she stated, would quantity to a two-tiered system during which rich prisoners are launched earlier than trial whereas others stay in detention. “I didn’t simply fall off the turnip truck,” the decide stated, including that what the attorneys have been proposing was a privately funded jail.
She cited a earlier courtroom choice, which prohibited such preparations. Studying from the opinion, she stated it was a “elementary precept of equity that the regulation protects the pursuits of wealthy and poor criminals in equal scale, and its hand extends as far to every.”
The indictment costs all three brothers with one depend of conspiracy to commit intercourse trafficking and a separate depend of the intercourse trafficking of 1 girl by drive, fraud and coercion. She was recognized within the indictment solely as Sufferer-2. Tal Alexander was additionally charged with the intercourse trafficking of a second sufferer, recognized as Sufferer-1.
The indictment says that, at occasions, the defendants “bodily restrained and held down their victims in the course of the rapes and sexual assaults and ignored screams and express requests to cease.” It additionally says the brothers gave girls medicine, together with cocaine, psilocybin and GHB, a so-called date-rape drug that causes lack of consciousness and reminiscence.
On Wednesday, Andrew Jones, a federal prosecutor, stated the federal government had interviewed greater than 40 girls who’ve accused the brothers of rape or sexual assault, with allegations relationship again 20 years. He stated the federal government had additionally obtained video proof, discovered on a pc onerous drive in Tal Alexander’s New York condominium, exhibiting a number of girls engaged in intercourse acts with the brothers whereas visibly intoxicated or incapacitated.
The U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Manhattan stated in a current letter to Decide Caproni that in some situations, not less than one of many brothers and one other man bodily manipulated these girls’s our bodies with the intention to have intercourse with them.
In courtroom, Mr. Jones referred to as the alleged sex-trafficking scheme a “playbook” conspiracy, describing how the brothers focused girls by way of relationship apps and membership promoters, lured them with guarantees of luxurious journey, after which drugged them earlier than assaulting them.
No less than two-thirds of the ladies who had been interviewed, the prosecutor stated, described ranges of intoxication that have been “grossly disproportionate” to the quantity of alcohol that they had consumed, and lots of stated that they had been pinned down and forcibly penetrated.
“A few of these girls say, ‘I couldn’t even scream,’” Mr. Jones added.
In accordance with the indictment, Oren, Tal and Alon Alexander conspired within the intercourse trafficking scheme for not less than 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.
Deanna Paul, a lawyer for Tal Alexander, acknowledged that the accusations have been critical. “That doesn’t make them true,” she stated. She later referred to the allegations as “an orchestrated effort encouraging girls to revenue from previous sexual experiences with the brothers.”
The Alexander household’s wealth was on the middle of a lot of the listening to’s discussions. Howard Srebnick, a lawyer for Alon Alexander, launched the brothers’ mother and father, Shlomo and Orly Alexander, who have been current within the courtroom. The mother and father have pledged all of their property with the intention to assist safe their sons’ pretrial launch.
“They’re ready to danger all the things,” stated Mr. Srebnick, gesturing to the couple.
The mother and father immigrated to the US from Israel earlier than their sons have been born and have become self-made millionaires. They personal a waterfront mansion in Miami’s unique Bal Harbour neighborhood that’s value an estimated $14 million.
At a number of factors in the course of the listening to, Decide Caproni requested the defendants’ attorneys to restrict their arguments to the slim challenge of whether or not the brothers, if launched on bail, posed a danger of hazard or flight.
She reminded them that they have been in a detention listening to, not but a trial.
