Luxury real estate brokers and identical twin brothers Oren and Alon Alexander were ordered held without bail Thursday in a Florida courtroom on sexual assault charges related to what federal officials allege was a long-standing sex trafficking.
Another brother, co-founder of the real estate company, is also charged. Oren and Tal Alexander, 37, co-founded luxury real estate company Official, which specializes in high-end properties in cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles with billionaire clients.
Federal prosecutors allege in a New York indictment that the three Alexander brothers worked together to “repeatedly and violently drug, sexually assault and rape dozens of victims.”
Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer ordered them held until a hearing Friday, during which their attorney will attempt to release them on bond. State prosecutors say both are flight risks and are expected to remain in jail until trial.
“We are making a bail proposal to the state. Hopefully the state is willing to do that,” the brothers’ attorney, Joel Denaro, said during the hearing in Miami. Oren and Alon Alexander appeared at the hearing by video wearing green protective vests with their arms exposed.
The other brother, Tal Alexander, 38, appeared Wednesday in Miami federal court on the federal sex trafficking charge involving all three. Tal Alexander will have a bail hearing Friday, with prosecutors requesting pretrial detention and Denaro also requesting bail there.
None of them have yet pleaded guilty.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference Wednesday that the brothers used their wealth and influence to take advantage of victims over a period from at least 2010 to 2021. The charges filed in Florida, meanwhile, involve specific incidents against known victims, according to prosecutors. .
The brothers, who all reside in the Miami area, used “deception, fraud and coercion” to get victims to travel with them or attend parties or events where they were covering the flights, hotels and other expenses, according to the New York indictment. They also sometimes used the promise of romantic relationships, officials said.
At Thursday’s hearing, Oren Alexander told the judge he had a special reason for asking for bail: His wife is nine months pregnant and “she’s counting on me to be with her” during labor.
“The law requires me to hold you without bail,” Glazer responded, noting that Oren Alexander’s attorney, Denaro, will have the opportunity to argue for his release at another hearing.
“We don’t believe he’s a flight risk,” Denaro said.
U.S. prosecutors say the female victims were often given drugs, including cocaine, psychedelic mushrooms and GHB, and that the brothers even surreptitiously drugged some of the women’s drinks, leaving them physically weakened and unable to defend themselves or escape sexual assault.
In the Florida cases, state prosecutors described a December 2016 incident as a “gang rape” of a woman who said she was invited to a barbecue at Alon Alexander’s Miami Beach apartment and having discovered no one there other than Alon and another man.
The second incident, which occurred in October 2017, involved a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander in her apartment following a real estate event. The woman said she was given a glass of wine that made her feel weak and unable to control her body before the attack, according to prosecutors.
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