WEBVTT
1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:13.080
Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher. Wednesday, March eighteenth,
2
00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:16.879
twenty twenty six. This is Daily Crime and Justice. I
3
00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:22.359
want to go back nine days March ninth, Manhattan Federal Court.
4
00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:25.239
A jury of six men and six women has been
5
00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:29.519
deliberating for approximately eight hours. Three brothers sit at the
6
00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:33.479
defense table, Tal Alexander thirty nine years old, and his
7
00:00:33.560 --> 00:00:38.359
twin brothers, Oran and Aylon thirty eight, all of them ensuits,
8
00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:42.079
all of them having maintained for months that they are innocent,
9
00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:45.840
that every woman who accused them was lying, that every
10
00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:50.079
woman who testified was motivated by shame, regret or greed.
11
00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:55.200
The four women stands or an. Alexander slowly shakes his head,
12
00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:59.000
Tal puts his head down. Their parents are in the gallery.
13
00:00:59.479 --> 00:01:03.640
The back is being rubbed by a family friend, and
14
00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:09.239
the four women begins reading guilty, Guilty, guilty, all twelve
15
00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:13.519
counts for Orin, all twelve for Alon, all ten for Tal,
16
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:18.519
every single count. I've been covering this trial since it opened.
17
00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:21.200
We did our first update back in February when the
18
00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:24.480
first witnesses took the stand, and I want to spend
19
00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:28.640
today's full episode on the complete story from the beginning,
20
00:01:29.239 --> 00:01:31.840
because this case is not just about three men who
21
00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:35.120
were convicted of federal sex crimes. It's about how wealth
22
00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:38.959
and status operate as a force field around predators. About
23
00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:42.439
how an entire industry knew or should have known, and
24
00:01:42.519 --> 00:01:46.719
said nothing. About how more than sixty women carried this
25
00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:49.519
for years before anyone with a badge and a subpoena
26
00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:58.079
took them seriously. Let me walk you through this tell.
27
00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:02.319
Alexander was born July second, nineteen eighty six. His twin brothers,
28
00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:05.519
Orrin and Alon arrived three days later July fifth, nineteen
29
00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:08.560
eighty seven. All three were born in the United States
30
00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:10.759
to Israeli parents who had moved to America in the
31
00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:15.000
nineteen seventies. They grew up in a family with money, ambition,
32
00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:18.520
and social reach, and somewhere along the way, two of
33
00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:23.080
the three brothers found their calling luxury real estate. Tall
34
00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:26.560
and or In Alexander became, by any measurable standard, two
35
00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:29.240
of the most successful real estate brokers in the country.
36
00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:32.680
They built their careers at Douglas Ellman, one of the
37
00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:36.280
most prestigious names in the industry, before eventually launching their
38
00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:41.000
own firm, the Alexander Group. They sold apartments on billionaire's row.
39
00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:44.719
They sold Hampton's estates. They sold the kinds of properties
40
00:02:44.759 --> 00:02:48.240
that are measured not in square footage but in cultural significance,
41
00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:50.280
the kind of homes you read about on the front
42
00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:52.919
page of real estate sections when a hedge fund manager
43
00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:56.879
decides to downsize to a mere forty million dollar penthouse.
44
00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:00.719
Their client list was a role call of the oldultra wealthy.
45
00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:04.479
Their sales records were staggering. The industry trade press called
46
00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:09.199
them real estates a team. They were profiled, photographed, celebrated.
47
00:03:09.879 --> 00:03:13.439
Orrin and Tal Alexander were not peripheral figures in their world.
48
00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:17.879
They were the world. Alawn Alexander moved in the same
49
00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:21.719
circles from a different angle. He ran the family's private
50
00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:25.159
security firm, the kind of business that provides protection to
51
00:03:25.319 --> 00:03:28.680
exactly the sort of ultra high net worth clients His
52
00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:33.000
brothers were selling apartments too. The Alexander brothers were not
53
00:03:33.159 --> 00:03:37.960
just real estate titans. They were an interconnected operation, socially
54
00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:40.879
and professionally woven into the highest levels of New York
55
00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:45.520
and Miami money. They lived accordingly, waterfront mansions in Miami.
56
00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:48.080
An apartment at four hundred and thirty two Park Avenue,
57
00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:51.840
one of the most expensive residential towers ever built, a
58
00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:54.680
sliver of glass and concrete on Billionaire's Row that stands
59
00:03:54.719 --> 00:03:58.479
nearly fifteen hundred feet above Midtown nightclubs, where they held
60
00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:02.759
VIP tables. As a matter of course, private jets all
61
00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:06.919
expenses paid trips to the Hamptons, Aspen, the Caribbean. This
62
00:04:07.240 --> 00:04:11.360
was not the occasional splurge. This was their operating environment,
63
00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:16.680
and this the lifestyle. The access, the invitation was also
64
00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:21.120
their weapon. Prosecutors would later describe the brother's approach as
65
00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:25.839
a playbook. Find women at nightclubs, parties, and on dating apps,
66
00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:30.759
Dazzle them with the lifestyle. Invite them somewhere the Hamptons
67
00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:34.639
for a weekend, a ski trip in Colorado, a Caribbean cruise.
68
00:04:35.319 --> 00:04:38.920
Make it easy to say yes, cover the flights, the hotel,
69
00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:42.040
the meals, and then, once you had them where you
70
00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:46.959
wanted them, drug them and assault them. The pattern allegedly
71
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:50.920
ran from twenty ten to twenty twenty one, more than
72
00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:55.480
a decade, more than sixty women, according to prosecutors, women
73
00:04:55.560 --> 00:05:00.680
from all walks of life, artists, executives, daughters of bills, millionaires,
74
00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:04.079
women in their early twenties, navigating a world where men
75
00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:08.560
like the Alexanders held every door. Here's what's important to
76
00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:12.279
understand about how these situations stay hidden. It's not magic,
77
00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:17.199
it's not perfect planning. The Alexander brothers conduct was, according
78
00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:21.240
to multiple witnesses and court documents, something of an open secret.
79
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:24.360
In their industry. Women talk to each other, They warned
80
00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:28.959
each other, and for years nothing happened. Because when a
81
00:05:28.959 --> 00:05:32.199
person with that much money, that much prestige, that much
82
00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:36.439
industry standing is accused, even whispered about, the whispers tend
83
00:05:36.519 --> 00:05:40.000
to stay whispers. The women who came forward early found
84
00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.439
themselves facing the full weight of a legal team and
85
00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:46.959
a public relations apparatus. In September twenty twenty five, court
86
00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:51.000
documents revealed that Orin Alexander had allegedly sent threatening messages
87
00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:54.800
to at least one victim after an assault, messages that read,
88
00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:58.160
nothing happened. If you keep talking about it, I'm going
89
00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:02.079
to ruin you. Of course he did. The brothers also
90
00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:05.560
filed a five hundred million dollar defamation lawsuit against the
91
00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:09.240
Real Deal, a real estate trade publication, when it reported
92
00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:14.959
on the allegations. Five hundred million dollars. The lawsuit wasn't
93
00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:18.800
ultimately going to succeed, But that wasn't really the point,
94
00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:22.319
was it. The point was the message it sent. We
95
00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:26.399
have lawyers, we have money, we have the means to
96
00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:30.680
make your life very uncomfortable. Do you want to keep talking?
97
00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:35.439
Some women stopped talking. Some couldn't be stopped. The first
98
00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:39.120
civil lawsuit started arriving in twenty twenty four, and when
99
00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:43.040
they did, more women came forward, and then more and
100
00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:47.120
federal prosecutors in New York began paying attention. On an
101
00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.680
early December morning in twenty twenty four, tal Orn and
102
00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:54.680
Aylon Alexander were arrested at their waterfront properties in Miami.
103
00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:59.120
They went from Billionaire's Row to Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.
104
00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:02.439
They have been held without bail ever since. Their attorney's
105
00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:07.160
argument for bail in a hearing that December denied. Jury
106
00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:11.720
selection began January twentieth, twenty twenty six. The trial commenced
107
00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:14.800
January twenty sixth in the Southern District of New York
108
00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:19.319
before Judge Valerie E. Caproni, and from the first day
109
00:07:19.319 --> 00:07:22.720
of opening statements, prosecutors made clear exactly what kind of
110
00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:26.439
case this was going to be. Assistant US attorney Madison
111
00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:30.360
Smiser told the jury the brothers used whatever means necessary,
112
00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.920
sometimes drugs, sometimes alcohol, sometimes brute force to carry out
113
00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:40.560
their rapes. The defense's response, these brothers were womanizers, they
114
00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:45.639
were playboys. They were perhaps obnoxious and inappropriate, but they
115
00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:50.160
were not criminals. Every encounter was consensual. Every woman who
116
00:07:50.199 --> 00:07:54.360
testified was either misremembering or lying or motivated by money.
117
00:07:55.199 --> 00:07:58.120
Five weeks later, the jury had a different view. We'll
118
00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:01.439
get into the trial after the break, but first I
119
00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:04.240
want to say something about the architecture of this case,
120
00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:07.959
because it's something that matters beyond these three men. This
121
00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:11.759
is a case that started with rumors, then whispers, then
122
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.240
civil lawsuits that the defendants immediately tried to suppress with
123
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.360
legal firepower. The criminal case only opened because enough women
124
00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:22.439
refused to be silenced long enough for federal prosecutors to
125
00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:25.879
build one. That is not a coincidence. That is a
126
00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:28.800
system working the way powerful men count on it to work.
127
00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:31.839
And the reason we should care about how the Alexander
128
00:08:31.879 --> 00:08:35.120
brothers operated beyond the specific horror of what they did
129
00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:39.279
to specific women, is because this playbook is not theirs alone.
130
00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:44.279
The lifestyle as a lure, the access as the weapon,
131
00:08:44.919 --> 00:08:49.320
the legal threats as the silencer, the industry that looks
132
00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:51.679
the other way because the money is too good and
133
00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:55.759
the whispers are too inconvenient. Someone should have said something.
134
00:08:56.440 --> 00:09:00.639
A lot of someone's years earlier will be right back
135
00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:04.600
coming up. The testimony that put three brothers away, a
136
00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:08.080
woman who woke up naked with Aileen Alexander standing over her,
137
00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:11.159
a seventeen year old girl on a ski trip in Aspen,
138
00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:15.240
a two thousand and nine video that Orin Alexander filmed himself.
139
00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.159
And a blog post with a title, I am going
140
00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:21.639
to read to you exactly as written because the jury
141
00:09:21.679 --> 00:09:33.080
needed to hear it, and so do you. Welcome back
142
00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:37.159
to Daily Crime and Justice. I'm Garrett Fischer. Five weeks,
143
00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:41.759
eleven women who testified, more than thirty total witnesses, an
144
00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:44.879
eight hour deliberation. Let me walk you through what the
145
00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:49.559
jury heard. The government's case rested on three pillars. Testimony
146
00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:53.000
from women who said they were assaulted, electronic evidence that
147
00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:56.799
the brothers themselves created, and a pattern of conduct so
148
00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:59.399
consistent across so many women in so many years that
149
00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:03.600
Quinn stop being a plausible explanation. Somewhere around the twentieth
150
00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:07.039
victim Let's start with the women. Eleven women took the
151
00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:10.399
stand and testified about being sexually assaulted by one or
152
00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.559
more of the Alexander brothers. Eight of them said they
153
00:10:13.639 --> 00:10:17.799
believed their drinks had been spiked. The accounts were strikingly
154
00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:20.879
similar in structure, even when the locations, the years, and
155
00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:25.360
the specific brothers involved differed. Meet the Alexanders at a nightclub,
156
00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:29.120
a party, a dating app, accept the invitation to a
157
00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:32.840
Hampton's weekend, to a Caribbean cruise, to a ski trip,
158
00:10:33.080 --> 00:10:36.639
get handed a drink, and then not a gradual fade out,
159
00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:40.639
not the recognizable drift of someone who had too much alcohol,
160
00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:46.519
but something sudden and complete, bodies that stop responding, a
161
00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:50.360
loss of control, with no precedent in their experience. One woman,
162
00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:54.000
who testified under the pseudonym Katie Moore, described a night
163
00:10:54.039 --> 00:10:57.320
in New York City. She met the brothers out, was
164
00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:01.159
handed a drink, and felt her body start to swear suddenly,
165
00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:05.039
not gradually. She told the jury she had never experienced
166
00:11:05.080 --> 00:11:08.519
anything like it. She had not been drunk. She woke
167
00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:11.440
up naked in a bed with a lawn, Alexander standing
168
00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:14.559
over her without any clothes on. She tried to get
169
00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:17.679
out of the bed multiple times. He pushed her back
170
00:11:17.759 --> 00:11:21.200
down each time. Another woman testified that she met the
171
00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:24.200
brothers in twenty twelve at a party at a Manhattan apartment.
172
00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:27.960
She had almost no interaction with the apartment's host. An
173
00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.679
actor who was not accused of any wrongdoing and is
174
00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.480
not relevant to this case, went to a night club
175
00:11:33.559 --> 00:11:36.879
later that night and woke up naked with Aileen Alexander
176
00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:40.840
standing over her. The pattern was the same, the details
177
00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:45.080
were different, the outcome was not. Lindsay Acree is an
178
00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:47.639
artist and gallery owner in Brooklyn. She chose to come
179
00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:51.240
forward publicly and testify under her own name. She told
180
00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:53.799
the jury she was raped by Tal Alexander and a
181
00:11:53.919 --> 00:11:56.440
second man at a Hampton's home in the summer of
182
00:11:56.440 --> 00:12:00.919
twenty eleven. She said she became so disorberried after drinking
183
00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:03.279
less than half a glass of wine that she lost
184
00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:06.519
control of her body and then lost the night entirely.
185
00:12:07.399 --> 00:12:10.559
She is now forty years old. She filed a civil
186
00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:13.679
lawsuit last year after the brothers publicly referred to their
187
00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:18.559
accusers as gold diggers and con artists. She told the jury,
188
00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:21.320
if there's a kid with a stick who keeps hitting people,
189
00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:24.720
you take their stick away. Money is their sticks, so
190
00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:27.519
you take it away so they can't hurt people anymore.
191
00:12:28.639 --> 00:12:31.759
That line hit the courtroom like a verdict. Before the verdict,
192
00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:34.679
one of the most significant testimonies came from a woman
193
00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:37.720
who said she was seventeen years old when she was assaulted.
194
00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:40.360
She was on a ski trip in Aspen, Colorado, in
195
00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:43.519
twenty seventeen. She told the jury she is the daughter
196
00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.600
of a billionaire. She is not here for money. She
197
00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:49.879
made that point directly. I don't want their money. I
198
00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:53.039
just don't want them to have it. She was seventeen.
199
00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:56.519
All On in Tell Alexander were both convicted, specifically of
200
00:12:56.519 --> 00:12:59.840
sex trafficking of a minor in connection with conduct and
201
00:13:00.440 --> 00:13:05.200
a minor victim. The testimony was graphic and devastating, but
202
00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:08.440
the electronic evidence may have been even more damaging because
203
00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:11.519
it was the brother's own words and actions on record.
204
00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:15.840
Prosecutors introduced text messages and emails in which the brothers
205
00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:20.039
discussed their sexual encounters in terms that went well beyond obnoxious.
206
00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:23.960
They discussed in writing the effects of various substances on
207
00:13:24.039 --> 00:13:28.759
women's inhibitions. They seemed at times to be bragging, not
208
00:13:29.039 --> 00:13:33.360
just about conquest but about method. And then there was
209
00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.399
the blog. The Alexander brothers at some point maintained a blog,
210
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.559
a blog with posts, and one of those posts, introduced
211
00:13:41.559 --> 00:13:44.679
into evidence at a federal sex trafficking trial in Manhattan,
212
00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:48.960
carried the title It's not rape if you use her
213
00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:54.600
tears as lube. Another post was titled it's not rape
214
00:13:54.639 --> 00:13:59.360
if she secretly wants it. I'm going to let that
215
00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:02.879
sit for a moment. These are not private diary entries.
216
00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:06.200
These are not messages between the brothers that got subpoenaed.
217
00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:11.720
These were blog posts published with titles, which tells you
218
00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:15.480
something about how these men understood themselves, their actions, and
219
00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:18.159
the likelihood that anyone would ever hold them accountable for
220
00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:22.320
any event. The single most damning piece of evidence may
221
00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:27.080
have been a video. When investigators searched Tal Alexander's apartment
222
00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:29.679
at four hundred and thirty two Park Avenue in early
223
00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:33.879
January twenty twenty five, they found video recordings of alleged
224
00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:38.279
sexual assaults. One video, recorded in two thousand and nine
225
00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:42.039
shows orin Alexander appearing to sexually assault a woman who is,
226
00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:48.039
according to prosecutors, severely intoxicated and incapacitated. The woman in
227
00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:52.240
the video did not actively participate, orin can be seen
228
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:56.799
moving her body, Orn recorded it himself, orin Alexander was
229
00:14:56.840 --> 00:15:00.279
convicted of sexually exploiting a minor. This additional ch yards
230
00:15:00.279 --> 00:15:03.879
relating to the video, orin Alexander filmed himself committing a
231
00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:07.279
crime and kept the video, of course he did. Now
232
00:15:07.639 --> 00:15:13.639
the defense, Mark Agnifilo represented Orin Alexander, Howard Strebnick represented Alon,
233
00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:19.519
Deanna Paul represented Tal. They are experienced, aggressive defense attorneys,
234
00:15:19.720 --> 00:15:23.519
and they worked hard. Their core argument never wavered. These
235
00:15:23.559 --> 00:15:28.240
were consensual encounters. The accusers had faulty memories, Some were
236
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:31.679
motivated by the prospect of civil lawsuit payouts. The brothers
237
00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:39.000
were womanizers, obnoxious, yes, inappropriate perhaps, but criminals, no, Srebnick
238
00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:43.200
told the jury, and closing, nobody was being assaulted, nobody
239
00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:48.080
had been trafficked. Agnephilo suggested that the victims were essentially