A trio of wealthy brothers was found guilty of federal sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan on Monday in a grand-slam verdict convicting them of each count they faced in a 10-count indictment.
The jury deliberated for three days before announcing a verdict for former luxury real estate brokers Tal Alexander, 39, and Oren Alexander, 38, as well as for Oren’s twin, Alon Alexander, a former executive in his parents’ private security firm.
The three brothers sat at the defense tables, shaking their heads as the verdict was read. Sentencing was set for August 6 for each defendant.
Any sex trafficking conviction, including for the top count of sex-trafficking conspiracy, carries a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.
The verdict follows a five-week trial in which prosecutors called 10 rape accusers to testify, none of whom had reported their incidents to police.
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The women gave compelling, sometimes tearful testimony about attacks in luxe locations in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Aspen, and Tel Aviv stretching back to 2008, when the brothers were in their early 20s.
They said the brothers used false promises of “afterparties” or fun weekend getaways to lure them into the worst experiences of their lives — being sexually violated through violence or a drugged drink.
Two women told jurors that they were drugged and then attacked by two of the brothers at the same time.
One said the twins took turns raping her inside a cruise ship cabin in 2012. The other said she was attacked by Tal and Alon Alexander and two other men in the bedroom of a Southampton vacation home in 2009, when she was 16 years old.
“I was wondering why they hated me,” the woman recalled thinking as she fell in and out of consciousness on a bed.
All ten women told jurors that in the hours and days after they were attacked, shame and fear kept them from telling anyone but their closest friends.
Only when they saw that the brothers were being sued and arrested — over allegations like their own — did they find the courage to step forward, the women testified.
“Because this feels bigger than me,” one accuser explained of coming forward now, fourteen years after she said she was drugged and raped at age 20 after a party at the Manhattan penthouse of actor Zac Efron.
“I’m 34 years old now, and I know who I am,” another accuser explained of coming forward. “And I wanted someone to be held accountable for what happened to me.”
Defense lawyers maintained that any sex was consensual and that the accusations were the product of regret and faulty memories.
They pointed to inconsistencies about timing and the women’s failure to take drug tests or report the incidents to law enforcement, and noted that many of the women communicated with the brothers
The defense also challenged whether the accounts the women described added up to sex trafficking, the charge behind half the counts in the ten-count indictment.
To convict on sex trafficking, jurors needed to find that the brothers used force, fraud, or coercion — including by secretly drugging drinks — to cause a commercial sex act, defined as sex in return for something of value.
Prosecutors said that the “something of value” was the brothers’ promise of a beach weekend at a Hamptons mansion, or an invite to go from a club to a hotel room for a fun “after-party.”
Defense lawyers countered that what was described in testimony was not sex trafficking because, in their view, there was no quid-pro-quo relationship proven between the lure — the “something of value” — and the alleged sex.
“The commerce — the thing of value — must be a result of the sex,” argued Marc Agnifilo, defense attorney for Oren Alexander.
In July, Agnifilo won a partial acquittal in another high-profile Manhattan sex trafficking case, that of entertainment and lifestyle entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs.
In that trial, Agnifilo similarly argued that the federal sex-trafficking statute was being stretched beyond its original purpose of protecting sex workers.
Combs was also acquitted of racketeering; he was convicted of transporting for purposes of prostitution and is serving a four-year prison term.
Three wealthy brothers, 10 rape accusers, one shocking indictment.
On Monday, the Alexander brothers — a trio who enjoyed money, good looks, and access to expensive homes and resorts around the world — will sit through the third day of deliberations in their federal sex-trafficking trial.
A Manhattan jury is considering the fates of these three men, former luxury real estate brokers Tal and Oren Alexander, and Oren’s twin brother Alon, who worked for his parents’ private security firm.
There is much to weigh.
Ten women, all testifying under pseudonyms, told jurors they were raped — sometimes through violence, sometimes after being drugged senseless, sometimes by more than one brother at once.
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None called the police.
Prosecutors have argued that there was too much corroborating evidence, too much genuine pain in the women’s words for their accounts to be false.
Defense lawyers countered that the sex was consensual, and that the women later invented or imagined stories of violence and violation out of regret or in hopes of a lawsuit payday.
After testimony by more than 30 prosecution witnesses and three witnesses for the defense, a six-man, six-woman jury must now agree on a complex, ten-count indictment that could put the brothers away for life.
Here is a count-by-count roadmap to that still-pending decision.
The Hamptons backyard where the youngest accuser in the Alexander brothers sex-trafficking trial says she was raped after being handed a drugged drink in a hot tub.
Southern District of New York/Business Insider
Count one: sex trafficking conspiracy
All three brothers are charged with conspiring to sex traffic four women who testified they were lured with something of value (a Hamptons beach getaway), only to be drugged or overpowered and then raped.
The youngest testified that she was drugged and raped at a Hamptons party by two brothers and two other men in 2009, after sneaking away from her boarding school, missing her high school prom.
To convict on this top count, jurors must find that between 2008 and 2021, the Alexanders worked together to get at least one of the four women to the Hamptons with the purpose of attacking her. They must also find that, for at least one woman, force, fraud, or coercion was then used to compel sex with at least one of the brothers.
All three brothers are charged with this count, which carries a potential sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
Count two: the sex trafficking Lindsey Acree
Lindsey Acree, who has a lawsuit pending against the brothers, told jurors that she was 25 when she and a girlfriend were invited to the siblings’ East Hampton rental home in 2011.
Acree said that soon after arriving, she was urged to enjoy the backyard jacuzzi, where Tal handed her a glass of wine that made her feel like a “zombie.”
She said that when she regained consciousness, Tal and a second man were raping her on the floor of the home’s gym.
At some point in her assault, Tal set up a tripod and camera, she said. “They were laughing a lot,” she told jurors of the two men. “I was on the ground. I couldn’t move.”
Tal alone is charged with this count.
Count three: Sex Trafficking Bela Koval
Bela Koval, a native of Ukraine, told jurors she was a 25-year-old model when Alon paid for her and a girlfriend to fly from Chicago to New York for a weekend at the brothers’ Sag Harbor rental home in 2016.
All three brothers greeted the women at the door, she said. They were taken yachting and served meals prepared by a private chef — expenses that prosecutors say the brothers shared.
Koval told the jury that at a pool party the next day, she sipped a drink handed to her by Oren that made her unsteady, “like a wave overtook my body.”
She said she felt still worse — “like my whole body was tranquilized” — after Alon gave her a glass of water. “I was unable to scream” as Oren raped her, she testified.
All three brothers are charged with sex-trafficking Koval.
An evidence photo shows the Sag Harbor mansion where Maya Miller testified she was raped by Tal Alexander in 2014.
Southern District of New York/Business Insider
Count four: sex trafficking Maya Miller
Maya Miller told jurors she was a 23-year-old aspiring model and about to enter nursing school when she and a girlfriend were invited by Tal to a summer weekend at the brothers’ Sag Harbor home in 2014.
Miller told the jury that she agreed because Tal promised to reimburse her for her flight from Nevada to New York and that the trip would be all-expenses-paid.
“It was the biggest home I’d ever been in,” she said of the mansion, where she and her friend were treated to a boat ride and meals by a private chef.
Tal turned “angry” as she remained sober through the second day, telling her, “I thought I invited fun girls,” Miller testified.
She testified that Tal raped her in the shower the next morning as she cried and struggled to scream.
Tal alone is charged with this count.
An evidence photo shows the Hamptons mansion where Isa Brooks testified she was raped by Tal Alexander, Alon Alexander, and two other men in 2009.
Southern District of New York/Business Insider
Count five: sex trafficking a minor
This final sex-trafficking count concerns Isa Brooks.
The Netherlands native testified she was 16 when she and a dormmate skipped their high school prom to accept a party promoter’s invite to the brothers’ Southampton mansion in 2009.
“I always heard it was, like, the place to be on Memorial Day weekend,” she said of the Hamptons.
She told the jury that during a party hours later, after drinking tequila in the backyard hot tub, “I was feeling woozy, kind of spinny.”
Brooks said she stumbled to a bedroom, where Tal began kissing her, and told her “his brother was going to join us.”
Brooks told the jury that she fell in and out of consciousness, and remembered “in flashes” being raped by Tal, Alon — the “more shy” twin — and two other men, including the one who’d given her tequila in the hot tub.
“I was wondering why they hated me,” she told the jury.
Tal and Alon are charged with this count.
Prosecutor Andrew Jones questioned Bela Koval, who testified she was raped by Oren Alexander in 2016.
Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
Count six: inducing Bela Koval to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity
This count concerns Bela Koval, the woman who testified she was raped by Oren after being invited to Sag Harbor in 2016.
It alleges that the three brothers caused Koval to travel across state lines, from Chicago to New York, so that she could be forced or coerced into “unlawful sexual activity,” meaning her alleged rape by Oren Alexander.
Prosecutors sought to prove this count by showing jurors communications among the brothers, including a text chain in which they mentioned Koval and her girlfriend, and joked about trying to “orgy them out.” All three brothers are charged with this count.
Count seven: inducing Maya Miller to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity
This count concerns Maya Miller, the woman who testified she was raped by Tal in the shower of a Sag Harbor mansion in 2014.
Tal alone is charged with this count.
The Norwegian Sky cruise ship, where a woman says she was raped by Alon and Oren Alexander in 2012.
Southern District of New York/Business Insider
Count eight: aggravated sexual abuse by force or intoxicant
This count alleges that Alon and his twin Oren sexually abused a heavily-drugged Rhonda Stone in the cabin of a Norwegian Sky cruise ship in 2012.
Stone testified she was 23 years old when she and her older sister went on a so-called “Groove Cruise” — a three-day trip to Miami and the Bahamas featuring round-the-clock live music and DJs.
She said she lost consciousness after drinking a mixed drink handed to her by one of the brothers, and woke up “naked in the bed,” and unable to move or speak as the two took turns raping her.
Alon and Oren Alexander are charged with this count.
Count nine: sexual abuse of a physically incapacitated person
This count offers an alternate theory of sexual abuse and also concerns Rhonda Stone and the 2012 cruise trip.
To convict, the jury must find that Stone was “physically incapable of declining participation” in a sexual act.
Alon and Oren are charged with this count.
Amelia Rosen testified she was 17 years old when Oren Alexander filmed her having sex with himself and a second man.
Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
Count 10: sexual exploitation of a minor
This count concerns Amelia Rosen, who prosecutors allege was 17 years old and incapacitated when she was videotaped having sex with Oren and a second man in a Manhattan apartment in 2009.
Jurors appeared visibly upset when the video was shown to them in court. Prosecutors said it shows Rosen slurring her words and barely able to stand.
“I can hardly understand what I was saying,” Rosen testified tearfully when shown snippets of the video in court.
Two Alexander brothers had sex with a protesting woman in the backyard of a Hamptons rental as other partygoers joined in or watched, according to testimony in the third week of the siblings’ Manhattan sex trafficking trial.
“She was over and over and over asking them to stop,” a witness told the jury of an unnamed woman she described as intoxicated and “screaming” for help in a hot tub.
It was Saturday night on Memorial Day weekend in 2009. Tal Alexander and “one of the twins” — the witness couldn’t say if it was Alon or Oren Alexander — were among those sexually assaulting the woman, according to the testimony.
“It seemed nobody was taking action,” said the witness, Avishan Bodjnoud, an information management executive at the United Nations.
Bodjnoud said she asked the people around her to do something, but no one would. In the midst of a party, “there were no allies there to help,” Bodjnoud said.
She felt too fearful and too alone in her outrage to contact the police, Bodjnoud told the jury.
Instead, she fled the party in a taxi, but not before scrawling “Rapists” and “You need to apologize” in eyeliner on the front door and wall of the Southampton rental, Bodjnoud testified.
Photographs of the graffiti, recovered from Tal Alexander’s hard drive, were shown in court. “I hoped that someday this could be used as evidence,” Bodjnoud said, seeing the photographs and tearing up on the witness stand.
The disturbing testimony capped the third week of the trial of former luxury real estate brokers Tal and Oren Alexander and their brother, Alon.
So far — roughly halfway through the federal trial — nine accusers have taken the stand. In sometimes tearful testimony, they have described being sexually assaulted behind closed doors by one or more of the brothers, including on a cruise ship, at two Hamptons rentals, and at an Aspen ski resort.
The hot tub incident stands out as the only alleged assault totake placein public view, with a pool party in full swing. It is not clear whether prosecutors will call the woman herself to the stand or whether she was ever identified.
Lawyers for the brothers say that any sex was consensual and not trafficking. In their cross-examinations of witnesses, the lawyers have repeatedly pointed out that none of the women called the police or took a drug test that could substantiate their claims of being drugged.
During cross-examination, a defense lawyer for Tal Alexander challenged Bodjnoud’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.
A second witness to the alleged hot tub assault testified on Thursday and Friday under the pseudonym “Isa Brooks.”
Brooks told jurors she saw “a girl, I believe, in a green bikini with a bunch of guys on top of her.”
She said she heard another woman — who, like her, was indoors looking out into the yard — cry out, “I work for the UN and I know what you’re doing!”
Oren Alexander, who was outside, slammed the door in that woman’s face, Brooks testified.
Brooks was called to testify to her own alleged assault, which she said took place earlier in the day on that same Saturday. She was days away from her 17th birthday.
She described struggling and falling in and out of consciousness as Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander, whom she described as the “quieter twin,” joined with two other men in violently assaulting her on a bed.
The four men were saying “degrading words” during the attack, Brooks told the jury.
“I was wondering why they hated me,” she recalled thinking.
On cross-examination, Brooks was questioned by the defense about photographs showing her celebrating her 17th birthday with school pals days after the incident, and was asked why, days after that, she and a girlfriend stayed overnight at another Hamptons home where Tal Alexander was also present.
“I was scared to rock the boat,” she responded of her reluctance to speak out or call the authorities. “I was scared that I would get in trouble.”
The brothers face up to life in prison if convicted of a top count of sex trafficking conspiracy.
