NEW YORK — Three wealthy brothers, including two who were successful real estate brokers in New York and Miami, systematically raped numerous girls and women after enticing them with extravagant trips and invitations to celebrity parties, federal prosecutors said in court Tuesday.
Oren Alexander, Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander face charges for allegedly working together and with others to procure dozens of victims to locations where they were often drugged and sometimes physically forced to have sex with the brothers, prosecutors said.
The glamorous lives led by the brothers, who have denied the charges, were filled with flashy outings in the Hamptons and elsewhere but included “a dark side,” prosecutors said.
“For over a decade these three brothers, the defendants, masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser argued in the government’s opening statement.
Smyser said the Alexanders “physically held victims down, they ignored pleas to stop, they slipped drugs in drinks” and also “got women and girls so intoxicated they couldn’t say no.”
One witness who is expected to testify was 16 years old when Tal Alexander “held her down as his brother Alon and two others took turns raping her,” according to Smyser.
Jurors will also hear about a time Oren Alexander allegedly videotaped himself raping a 17-year-old, who will testify under the name Amelia. Oren Alexander allegedly sent that video to a friend, “proud of what he had done,” Smyser told the jury. Jurors are expected to see the video.
The brothers have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Their attorneys suggested that the accusers falsely claimed sexual encounters were nonconsensual because of regret and embarrassment. Some were also motivated by the possibility of financial gains, the attorneys said.
Oren and Tal Alexander were at the top of the luxury real estate business and were highly visible in social circles in New York, the Hamptons, Florida and elsewhere during the alleged sex trafficking conspiracy that began in 2008 and allegedly lasted more than a decade. Alon Alexander was an attorney and executive.
Teny Geragos, an attorney for Oren Alexander, said her client was a “womanizer” and “playboy” but not a rapist.
“He was out to have as much sex as possible with as many women as he could, but he was not a predator,” Geragos said in her opening remarks.
The trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan is expected to last a month. The brothers are being held without bond. Each brother faces up to life in prison if convicted on the most serious charges.
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