The Alexander brothers were found guilty on all counts Monday in one of the largest sex trafficking cases ever tried by the Department of Justice.
The Manhattan federal court jury found Tal, 39, and twins Alon and Oren Alexander, 38, guilty of carrying out a more than decadelong sex trafficking conspiracy starting around 2008, using their wealth and influence to lure dozens of women to luxurious locations to be date raped and violently sexually assaulted. Three of the counts involved minors.
Before their arrests, Tal and Oren were two of the highest-paid real estate brokers in the U.S. They could face life in prison when sentenced by Manhattan Federal Judge Valerie Caproni on Aug. 6.
In reaching their stunning verdicts, jurors who heard chilling rape and abuse allegations involving at least 11 women over the more than monthlong trial rejected the defense’s positions that the victims were lying and motivated by money, heartbreak, or jealousy.
The defense sought to depict the victims as opportunists out for cash, a narrative that didn’t stand up, with the feds pointing out only two of the women were involved in a litany of outstanding lawsuits.
Prosecutors spoke with at least 60 women during their investigation, who variously alleged that the brothers had recruited women online, through friends and sometimes at bars, luring them to lavish locations in New York City, the Hamptons, Aspen, Colorado, and other destinations.
Women who took the stand described being viciously attacked after they had been isolated, often after they had been drugged with date rape drugs and other sedatives. The panel watched footage of an unconscious 17-year-old girl being raped by Oren Alexander, which the public was not permitted to see.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton called the brothers’ crimes “chilling, reprehensible and unacceptable,” in a statement. He acknowledged federal law enforcement had not done enough to combat the scourge of sex trafficking.
“Federal sex offenses are all too prevalent in our society and all too often go unreported and unpunished. The truth is sex trafficking and other federal sex offenses are present in many walks of life and we have not done enough to root it out,” Clayton said.
“The verdict comes after a weekslong trial where evidence and testimony from 11 brave victims demonstrated that the Alexander brothers conspired to repeatedly lure, drug and rape young women. These are chilling, reprehensible and unacceptable acts.”
The three brothers from Miami appeared crestfallen as the guilty verdicts came down, shaking their heads in disbelief. Eldest brother Tal dropped his head between his hands as his attorney, Deanna Paul, comforted him.
Tal and Oren, former agents for the Douglas Elliman real estate firm, made their names selling some of the country’s priciest properties, including what was, at the time, the most expensive apartment on billionaire’s row. After getting his law degree, Alon worked for their Israeli-American family’s private security firm that served an elite clientele.
Oren was primarily represented by Marc Agnifilo and partners at his firm, who helped secure Sean “Diddy” Combs’s acquittal on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in the same courthouse last year. Diddy was convicted of prostitution offenses and is currently serving a four-year prison sentence.
In brief remarks to reporters outside the courthouse, Agnifilo vowed to appeal.
“Obviously, not the verdict we were looking for, but we’re going to keep fighting,” Agnifilo said. “Our resolve is unshaken. We’re going to keep representing them, and we believe that we will prevail in the future, although that day was not today.”
Twins Oren and Alon were convicted Monday of six counts, and Tal was found guilty of all seven he faced. All three were convicted of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, sex trafficking a young woman, who testified anonymously, by force, fraud, or coercion, and inducing that same woman to travel to be abused.
In the prosecution’s rebuttal on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa implored the jury to find the brothers guilty, saying they had long acted with total impunity, enabled by their immense privilege.
One woman who testified under the pseudonym “Katie Moore” told the jury about being drugged and raped by Alon in June 2012 after an NBA watch party at “High School Musical” actor Zac Efron’s Meatpacking District apartment. In disturbing detail, she described blacking out after a couple of drinks and coming to while naked in bed with him at an unknown location.
Moore told jurors she recalled feeling paralyzed, unable to move, while Alon molested her and attempted in vain to force her to perform oral sex. At one point, she said his brother, Tal, came into the room. She described Alon as ignoring her cries and raping her while in a trance-like state.
“There was a point where I was crying, telling him to stop, and he wouldn’t,” Moore said. “It was like he wasn’t even there. He was so in his own world.”
Another woman, who testified anonymously under the pseudonym “Maya Miller,” said she accepted Tal’s invitation to a party in the Hamptons in August 2014. Miller said she became uncomfortable with other women in attendance falling unconscious and tried to leave early the next morning, when Tal violently raped her in the shower. She said her internal injuries were so vicious that she bled for two days.
“When he was cleaning himself up, he looked at me and said, ‘You wanted it,’” Miller told the court.
The Israeli-American brothers have been jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since their December 2024 arrests, which were announced at the last press conference given by Damian Williams, the former Manhattan U.S. attorney under President Biden. At one stage, the wealthy brothers offered sums of up to $100 million in a failed bid for release on bail.