Star real estate brothers convicted of sex trafficking

What happened

A federal jury in Manhattan on Monday found former star real estate brokers Oren and Tal Alexander and their brother Alon guilty on all 10 counts of sex trafficking and related crimes. During a five-week trial, prosecutors said the Alexander brothers worked together to drug and rape scores of women, including minors, from at least 2008 to 2021. Eleven women testified that one or more of the brothers had sexually assaulted them, and jurors were shown a video Oren Alexander recorded of himself raping an incapacitated 17-year-old girl in 2009.

Who said what

The verdict “caps the downfall” of Tal, 39, and Oren, 38, “the highflying real-estate agents who once brokered some of the country’s priciest transactions in New York, Aspen and Miami,” The Wall Street Journal said. Alon, Oren’s twin, worked at the family’s security business. The victims “testified that they met the brothers at nightclubs, parties and on dating apps,” The Associated Press said, then “were attacked after accepting their invitations to all-expense paid getaways.” Defense lawyers “argued that the brothers were playboys and womanizers but not criminals,” The New York Times said. They unsuccessfully “cast the victims as a bloc of scorned women, all motivated by shame, regret and greed.” The jurors saw the Alexanders’ conduct “for what it was — calculated, brutal sexual abuse that, unimaginably, the defendants celebrated,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.

What next?

“We believe in our clients’ innocence,” Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, said after the verdict. “We’re going to keep fighting.” U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni set sentencing for Aug. 6. The brothers, incarcerated since their 2024 arrests, face up to life in prison.