Sex trafficking trial prosecutors say Alexander brothers were predators, not partiers

MANHATTAN (CN) — Three wealthy brothers used drugs, alcohol and sometimes force to carry out numerous “brutal rapes” of young women and teenagers, federal prosecutors said Tuesday during opening statements of a high-profile sex trafficking trial.

And according to the government, jurors will see at least one of those assaults on-camera. Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser told the jury that Oren Alexander, a luxury real estate agent and Manhattan socialite, filmed himself having sex with a “far from sober” 17-year-old — now evidence in the federal case. At the time, however, he “sent that video to a friend, proud of what he had done,” Smyser said.

It is just one of many grisly accusations levied against Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander, who are standing trial on sprawling sex trafficking claims that span years.

“For over a decade, these three brothers, the defendants, masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators,” Smyser told the jury.

Smyser said the brothers “had a playbook” for their crimes: tout their influence and wealth to young women, ply them with drugs and alcohol, then rape them — sometimes amid pleas to stop, other times unable to speak at all. One-by-one, she introduced each man to the jury.

“This is Alon Alexander,” Smyser said, gesturing to one of the sportscoat-clad brothers flanked by lawyers at the defense table. “A woman named Katie [Moore] met Alon and one of his brothers at an exclusive party in Manhattan.”

That exclusive party, according to Moore, who testified Tuesday under that pseudonym to protect her privacy, was an NBA watch party at Hollywood A-lister Zac Efron’s apartment in 2012. That turned into a night out at since-shuttered Meatpacking District dance club The Provocateur, where Moore said that, despite drinking very little, she lost control of her body and eventually blacked out.

When Moore awoke, Smyser said she found, “to her horror, Alon standing over her naked.”

“The first thing I said to him was, ‘I don’t want to have sex with you,’” Moore testified. “And his response was to laugh in my face and say, ‘You already did.’”

Moore said she was struck by Alon Alexander’s “flippant” and “uncaring” behavior, especially when he proceeded to rape her again as she cried and pleaded for him to stop. At one point, she recalled Tal Alexander walking into the room and having a conversation with his brother in the midst of the assault.

“What stuck out to me was how normal it seemed,” Moore said, hypothesizing that she had been drugged before the incident.

Of Tal Alexander, Smyser introduced him as a man who once invited a young woman named Maya to his house in the Hamptons, chased her into the home’s shower, held her by the neck and raped her as she cried for help.

Oren Alexander, too, invited a woman named Bela to a Hamptons home, according to Smyser. While there, Smyser said he spiked Bela’s drink, climbed on top of her while inebriated, and assaulted her.

“These are just three of the defendants’ many rapes,” Smyser said. “We are here today because of what the defendants did to these three women and so many more.”

But the brothers’ defense attorneys claimed otherwise. They urged the jury not to hold their clients’ life of excess, partying and womanizing against them and downplayed the accusations as overblown.

“The government just told you a monstrous story,” Teny Geragos, Oren Alexander’s lawyer, said Tuesday. “The truth is something far more ordinary.”

The brothers were ambitious, at times arrogant, Geragos said. But she claimed they were also normal single men who liked to pursue women.

“That’s not trafficking,” she said. “That’s dating. That’s hooking up.”

Deanna Paul, Tal Alexander’s lawyer, told the jury that they didn’t have to like the defendants to acquit them. She also used the word “arrogant” to describe the brothers, and said that some of the evidence “will make you cringe.”

“But we’re not here for the Asshole Awards,” Paul joked.

Prosecutors say the jury will hear from “victim after victim” throughout the course of the trial, which is slated to last more than a month. The three brothers face a litany of sex crime charges, including the rapes of eight women — two being underage.

Moore will resume her testimony on Wednesday, where she’ll be cross-examined by a team of high-powered defense attorneys. In addition to Geragos and Paul, the brothers have Marc Agnifilo in their corner, who recently helped Sean “Diddy” Combs beat similar sex trafficking accusations and is on Luigi Mangione’s defense team.

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