About 15 years before Oren and Alon Alexander would be charged with sex trafficking, an anonymous blog post appeared. It asked a shocking question: “Does anyone know what ever happened to Oren and Alon Alexander, the two twins who raped that girl in that party back in 2003?”
The post — which later disappeared from the internet — included graphic, specific details of a sexual assault, describing a victim running barefoot from a party before being treated at two different hospitals.
Published on Dec. 12, 2009, the blog post was made to look like a newspaper article. The New York Times could not identify who wrote the post and could not verify that the incident occurred. But the post tarnished the image that the twins had been cultivating as socialites and young men beginning their careers. Oren Alexander had just started working at Douglas Elliman, one of the largest real estate brokerages in the country, and Alon Alexander had joined his family’s private security services company.
As soon as the post was published, the brothers took an aggressive, multipronged approach to try to identify the person who wrote it and to scrub it from the internet.
Their dogged efforts — including legal action in two different courts and combative correspondence with the mystery writer — offer a window into the brothers’ past. These actions foreshadowed what federal prosecutors have called a pattern of intimidation that Oren, Alon and their older brother, Tal Alexander, would use for decades to silence women who accused them of rape or sexual assault.
Susan Necheles, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, and Joel Denaro, a lawyer representing both Oren and Alon Alexander, declined to comment on the blog post. Though the post does not mention Tal Alexander, his lawyer, Deanna Paul, referred to it as libel. In an emailed statement, she said anyone facing such a post “should take legal or judicial steps to address it. Repeated false media attacks are obviously dangerous.”
On Dec. 11, almost 15 years to the day of the blog post, Oren Alexander, 37, Alon Alexander, 37, and Tal Alexander, 38, were arrested in Miami on federal sex trafficking charges. They continue to await arraignment in jail on those charges. In addition to the federal charges, the twins face state charges connected to three separate assaults. They both pleaded not guilty to those state charges on Dec. 13.
Ohad Fisherman, a friend of the Alexander family, faces state charges as an accomplice in one of those assaults. He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer, Jeffrey Sloman, confirmed that he is home on bond. Federal prosecutors say the brothers began engaging in acts of sexual violence while still in high school in Miami in the early 2000s.
Federal prosecutors say they have interviewed at least 40 women with allegations of assault against the brothers, dating back 20 years. In a letter requesting that judges deny the brothers bail, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, listed tactics used by the brothers to prevent women from coming forward. For example, he wrote, Tal and Oren Alexander filed a police report alleging harassment by a woman who said she had been assaulted. Tal Alexander also threatened defamation lawsuits, Mr. Williams wrote, and Alon Alexander compiled a file on each publicly identified victim “as part of an apparent attempt to discredit their accusers.”
In the case of the 2009 blog, Oren Alexander sent threatening messages to an email address linked to the anonymous writer. The brothers hired an investigator who specializes in cyberattacks, and later took legal action against “Jay, John and Jane Doe” in New York and Florida courts. The Times reviewed the legal documents and a screenshot of the blog post and interviewed the investigator they hired.
A link to the post now reads “blog has been removed.”
The blogger described an incident claimed to have occurred in 2003, when the twins would have been sophomores at Michael M. Krop Senior High School in North Miami Beach. The blog, titled “What Became of Oren Alexander and Alon Alexander,” was written to look like an article syndicated by The Associated Press. “Here is the Miami Herald article of that incident, who could forget,” the blogger wrote, providing a URL that mirrors the style of miamiherald.com.
No such article was ever published in The Miami Herald, and a close read of the post shows errors: It quotes a Miami sheriff, but at the time of publication, Miami-Dade was the only county in Florida that did not have a sheriff. Its headline doesn’t follow the house style of either The Miami Herald or The Associated Press.
Within hours of the posting, a second blog with the same title — “What Became of Oren Alexander and Alon Alexander” — appeared on the internet. This one was filled with glowing stories of volunteerism and hard work by Oren and Alon Alexander. Its first post was biographical, catching readers up on the twin brothers’ college education and new jobs. “They do a number of social charity causes by helping-out poors and making the poor people move forward,” the blog read.
When asked whether Oren and Alon Alexander created the favorable blog, their lawyers declined to comment.
Oren Alexander reached out to Steven Wagner, a Manhattan lawyer, weeks after the post appeared online. In September 2010, Mr. Wagner filed a summons against Jay, John and Jane Doe in New York Supreme Court — legal action taken against someone anonymous that is followed by subpoenas designed to identify the person — and reached out to Glenn Dardick, the investigator, who found a Gmail address connected to the blogger.
Mr. Wagner declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.
The Times viewed a transcript of the email exchange.
At 1:56 a.m. on July 17, 2010, Oren Alexander sent an email to the blogger. “We got your ip address,” he wrote. “We went easy on you before. That’s it. Ha.”
The blogger responded at 2:04 a.m.: “So you remember the rape?”
The conversation was tense: Oren Alexander and the blogger sent at least 14 emails back and forth over a span of three hours. Oren Alexander appears to think the blogger is someone he went to high school with, and threatens to “have a talk with ur parents.” The blogger says that Oren Alexander clearly isn’t aware whom he is corresponding with, and refers to multiple women allegedly assaulted by the brothers.
“Whats the matter?” the email from the blogger reads. “Lost count of all your victims?”
The blogger was right that Oren Alexander did not know the person’s identity. He also did not have the IP address; his email was a bluff.
After filing the summons on behalf of Oren and Alon Alexander, Mr. Wagner never filed a lawsuit.
In January 2011, Oren Alexander went around Mr. Wagner and reached out to Mr. Dardick directly, forwarding the email exchange and asking for help identifying the blogger.
“They asked if I could look at the emails they had gotten and if I could determine what the IP address was,” Mr. Dardick told The Times. But Mr. Dardick wasn’t able to. He told Mr. Alexander that the brothers would need to file a lawsuit and subpoena Google to obtain more information. Mr. Dardick said that he never heard from the brothers again and that he was not paid for his services.
Over the next two years, more glowing blogs appeared on the internet about the brothers’ accomplishments and character. A post from July 2011 reads: “Today Alon and Oren Alexander are very successful young professionals that remain very charitable as well. They work together to grow their respective businesses.”
Another blog noted in August 2013 that they had topped a “most eligible bachelors” list compiled by “Hamptons Journal,” that their father had taught them the value of hard work, and that they understood “the significance of socializing.”
“That’s what makes them so successful and appealing that today they are the hottest bachelors in the Hamptons,” the blog entry reads. (It appears that their facts were slightly mixed up and the honor had been bestowed by Hamptons magazine.)
Months later, in December 2013, working with a different lawyer, the twins filed a lawsuit in Florida state court. Their mother, Orly Alexander, notarized the twins’ signatures on the complaint. The defendant is listed as John Doe.
The defendant, whose “residence and citizenship are uncertain at this time,” the complaint reads, has published false statements about the brothers, including that they had committed rape. “This is an utter falsehood,” the complaint reads.
The brothers were granted a temporary injunction in January 2014, and Judge Donald E. Grincewicz of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida ordered John Doe — as well as “any electronic communication provider” — to remove the blog. The blog was taken down sometime after.
In April 2016, Judge John E. Jordan of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida wrote a letter noting there had been no activity in the case for at least 10 months, and ordered the matter dismissed.
The post A Blog, an Anonymous Writer and Twin Brothers Accused of Sexual Assault appeared first on New York Times.
