“I carry a quiet funeral within me” Victims Confront Convicted Rapists, The Alexander Brothers, Before Sentencing

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Wednesday, October 28th. And for weeks, there have been so many headlines about the Tate brothers. But don't forget about the sex-trafficking Alexander boys who heard their fate yesterday. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. They heard their fate. I don't know quite if this was throwing the book at them. But this judge... I would love to give credit for how she handled these proceedings yesterday.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: Yes, she threw some harsh words at the Alexander brothers, but she stopped short of throwing everything she had at them.

00:00:42
Speaker 2: You know what? I give her credit. There was something in her tone that was not quite merciful at all. But she left room for anybody to be rehabilitated. I don't know this judge, but all I did was read her words. I've never heard her voice, and this was not a proceeding that was on TV. This was done well and decently. A lot of victims got to speak, and it was important for them to have their moment after all these years. Rose, these charges go back years and years and years. But yes, the Alexander brothers, Rose, I'll be honest. I forgot because we've been talking about the Tate so long.

00:01:17
Speaker 1: That's so true. And this all, yes, took place in a federal courtroom here in Manhattan. So, yes, federal courts don't have cameras in the courtroom. So we relied on all the journalists there and certainly some court renderings. But it was described as emotional, as powerful, a lot of women. It was a packed courtroom. They said it was standing room only. folks were lined up to hear from, yes, the 11 victims who gave their impact statements, and we heard from Alon, Oren, and Tal Alexander for the very first time since they were arrested more than two years ago. So that was a significant development as well. And to be noted, and we'll get into the specifics of what they said, but they are still professing their innocence. Their attorneys, they chalk it up to basically being misbehaving playboys, so to speak.

00:02:12
Speaker 2: Misbehaving playboys. We're talking about drugs. We're talking about underage girls. We're talking about rape. We're talking about humiliation. We're talking about years of this. We're talking about repeated offenses. These aren't one-off type descriptions.

00:02:25
Speaker 1: Decades long.

00:02:25
Speaker 2: Is this what they're... What were these just said? They... Playboy is not predators, right?

00:02:32
Speaker 1: That's what his attorney said, Mark Agnefillo.

00:02:34
Speaker 2: Like, they're bad. Oh, yeah, they didn't treat women well. Not at all. No, no, no, no, no. However, they're not this thing that's described. But, Robes, there is too many women given too many accounts that are too similar. this is pretty incredible what they were able to pull off.

00:02:50
Speaker 1: There was an overwhelming amount of evidence. And yes, the brothers, all three of them. It's so hard to imagine. 39-year-old twins, by the way, Alon and Oren, and 40-year-old Tal. And it was Alon and Tal, I believe, who were the real estate tycoons, so to speak. They And yes, they were convicted in March of sex trafficking, raping, and drugging women and teenagers. Yes. And the judge ultimately sentenced them to 30 years each in federal prison with another 10 years of supervised release following that prison term. But the prosecution and the victims were asking for life in prison.

00:03:32
Speaker 2: So I guess it could have gotten worse, but they had to get at least, was it 15? That was the minimum sentence. that the judge had to give them. So doubled what the minimum was for these particular charges. Help me again, Robes. I always struggle to keep them straight. Which ones were the twins?

00:03:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Alon and Orin were the twins.

00:03:48
Speaker 2: Alon. Wait, wait, wait. Stop right there. Alon and Orin. How do you spell Alon? Is A-L?

00:03:53
Speaker 1: A-L-O-N.

00:03:55
Speaker 2: Alon and Orin. But the dynamic duo for the real estate Not the twins. It was one of the twins.

00:04:02
Speaker 1: It was Oren and Tal.

00:04:03
Speaker 2: That's where I keep getting it mixed up.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: Yes. And Alon, actually, basically, the family was already wealthy. They have this securities investment company. So he's an executive financial dude. And then Oren and Tal became these big real estate. I mean, basically, they're described as conquering the Manhattan real estate scene. Imagine, here were some of their clients. Tommy Hilfiger, Ivanka Trump, Kim Kardashian, Kanye, Ken Griffin. So they were selling multi, multi-million dollar homes and apartments in the Hamptons and New York City and made gobsmacks of money.

00:04:34
Speaker 2: Okay, it's fair to say these two were the stars of New York real estate.

00:04:39
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

00:04:40
Speaker 2: It's one thing if it's just not a matter of how many homes or how much real estate and the amount of money. Robes, they were young.

00:04:48
Speaker 1: Good looking.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Attractive, celebrity type thing. It fit perfectly and they were successful and... You attach all these celebrity names, it's hard to overstate how big of a deal they were in real estate.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: Yes, it's so sad, too, to think about how much they were given to even begin their businesses, the good looks they were given, the money they were given. They had everything going for them.

00:05:17
Speaker 2: Why? Too much.

00:05:18
Speaker 1: Why?

00:05:18
Speaker 2: Too much power.

00:05:19
Speaker 1: Why in God's name?

00:05:20
Speaker 2: Too much power, money, and get away with anything.

00:05:21
Speaker 1: All three of them, collectively. So this all broke open, by the way, just to remind you, I needed to be reminded, it was in June of 2024, so not even that long ago, a real estate trade publication called The Real Deal, they did an article on two civil lawsuits that were out there accusing Oren and Alon of rape. Those lawsuits... then led to more women coming forward and accusing all three men of drugging them, raping them. So all of a sudden these women are like, holy hell, that happened to you too. That happened to you too. Look, this is an embarrassing, humiliating thing. A lot of these women were answering dating apps or met someone at a nightclub and they got lured into, hey, you want to come to Mykonos? You want to come to the Hamptons? You want to come to the Caribbean on our yachts, fly on our private planes? Yes, that all is exciting. And then they found themselves drugged And in being sexually assaulted, that's an embarrassing thing, I think, for a lot of women to admit. But once you see that other women are coming forward with an exact same story, then now prosecutors say up to 70 women, 70 victims from these three men. And it was in December of 2024 that they were arrested in a raid in Miami at their family's multi, multi-million dollar home. And so they've been behind bars ever since. And they're going to stay there for 30 years.

00:06:48
Speaker 2: There's so many cases that we've seen like this where it just takes one and the wheels come off and then it gets rolling. Because how many times have we heard a woman say that she heard a news account go, wait a minute. That sounds exactly what would happen to me. And then here comes somebody else. This is what happens. And good on them. This was not police. This was not somebody coming forward, doing an interview. It was kind of, I don't want to say it was a throw. It was an aside. This wasn't even a major New York Times type investigation.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: No, exactly. This wasn't a major news outlet. And that's really remarkable. But yes, the power of one voice or two voices. But in the victim impact statements, babe, this is chilling to read something. I just wanted to read some of what these women said. And just, I want people to imagine to have lived through this and then to be able to stand up in court. And a lot of these women went under pseudonyms because, yeah, they don't want to be known for this. Who wants to be known for this? This isn't something. This takes a lot of courage. And Maya, this is a pseudonym. This was the big one that's making a lot of headlines, what she said. What happened to me was not a misunderstanding. There was no confusion. Tall Alexander raped me. I carry a quiet funeral within me for the person I might have become if this never happened to me. Every second that Tall raped me in that shower felt like an eternity of terror. She says that happened to her in the Hamptons in 2014.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: East Do we have an age on her?

00:08:16
Speaker 1: I don't know what her age is. No, but there was this next woman, Issa, again a pseudonym, said this happened when she was 16. She said she was raped by Tal and Elan, as well as two other men back in 2009. She said, Yeah.

00:08:40
Speaker 2: These are still young women. Yes.

00:08:41
Speaker 1: Another woman said that Oren raped her nearly a dozen times. She says she was drugged and was, quote, profoundly incapacitated. She said, I remember looking at him and seeing a monster with black eyes. And then she turned to Oren and directly, you're not supposed to do this, but many of the women did this, by the way, directly addressed them. She directly looked at Oren and said, you are weak. You are inhumane. You never had power and look at you now.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: We've seen plenty of judges be lenient with that. There was one case, I remember a dad actually took the podium, turned it towards, you're not supposed to, I've never seen a judge stop a Anybody do it. But in that moment, and Rob, you think a lot of these women haven't laid eyes on these guys, haven't been in the same room with them since the last incident, if you will. It would have been years and years ago. To walk in there, it took a lot.

00:09:36
Speaker 1: Wow. I know. And most of them use pseudonyms, but Lindsay Acree, she lives in Brooklyn. She put her name, her face. She also directly addressed the brothers. And she was describing, this is heartbreaking, the pain of finding out that her eight-year-old daughter- discovered the information about her and this case while searching for her mom's name online, And she looked directly at them and said, this has wasted my damn time. It's wasted your time. It's wasted everyone in this room's time. For why? For you? Because you did some really messed up stuff. The biggest thing is why. Why did you do this? I don't understand the cruelty. I don't understand your hatred toward women. And the whole, like all the women in the courtroom broke out into applause. after she said that.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: Did the judge even hit the gavel and say, quiet down?

00:10:29
Speaker 1: Nope. And look, we also got to hear from the Alexander brothers. This was remarkable. The New York Times reported that both Tal and Alon's voices were trembling. while they spoke, some of them were crying. This is disgusting, Oren stands there in front of the judge and says, my brothers and I have never drugged or raped anyone. We never trafficked anyone for sex and we never conspired to hurt anyone. Tall said he asked the judge to understand how difficult it is to stand here and express genuine regret about something I did not do. Over the last two years, I've lost everything I loved, everything I worked for. I feel like an atomic bomb has been dropped on my life and destroyed everything in its wake. I mean, literally, they're taking no... Accountability. Alon said not a... Oh, sorry. I was going to get his into. Not a single woman has accused him of wrongdoing in the eight years since he's been committed to his wife. Oh, let me slow clap that one. And then he went on to say, I am not a perfect man, but I am innocent of these charges. I have never raped or sex trafficked anyone. The party life you heard about and saw in the courtroom ended long before the FBI came knocking. Six years before my arrest, I was building a different life.

00:11:45
Speaker 2: Is he the one that was a part of the family business? Which one was the one who was not doing the real estate? I cannot keep this straight.

00:11:51
Speaker 1: The guy, the one who was not doing the real estate was Alon. He was working for his family's business.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: Was Alon.

00:11:56
Speaker 1: Yes.

00:11:56
Speaker 2: So who was it that's talking about the family and whatnot that he's married now?

00:12:00
Speaker 1: Alon.

00:12:01
Speaker 2: That's Elan. Okay.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: But they all, I think, are married and have kids now. And they all have been referencing that, saying, my poor kids. And by the way, Oren and Elan referenced lie detector tests that they say supported their claims. And the judge, I have to say, shot back in the middle of it and said, Mazel Tov for passing, but liars can pass polygraphs. She said that directly to them. But look.

00:12:23
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, drugs. There's a reason.

00:12:25
Speaker 1: Yes.

00:12:25
Speaker 2: There's a reason they're inadmissible in court.

00:12:27
Speaker 1: Correct.

00:12:27
Speaker 2: Because they're not reliable. You can't depend on them and people can beat them. They're just supposed to be a tool. But to point that out and say, aha, I'm innocent because of that is, you could pass a lighter text. Well, maybe not you.

00:12:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could, but they're master manipulators. And so, yes, they convinced women to marry them after all this crap. But look, so they acknowledge treating women poorly. And exchanging degrading messages, text messages about them, because that was all in court when they were going through trial. But the categorically denying.

00:12:58
Speaker 2: But you need an appeal. You can't admit to anything if you're going to appeal it, right? You're still trying to get out of prison. You can't say, yeah, I did all this. Please give me mercy.

00:13:06
Speaker 1: And they're still facing around two dozen civil lawsuits accusing them of sexual assault and rape. So yes, to that point, they cannot. But when we come back, we want you to hear what the judge, and she was awesome, Judge Valerie Caproni had to say to these three brothers. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. It was a hell of a day in a Manhattan federal courtroom on Tuesday, the emotional sentencing hearing for the Alexander brothers, 11 victims and a 12th victim actually had her statement read. She just, I don't think she had the bandwidth to show up in court. I can't imagine that moment facing those three men, but they sat there crying, sniveling in front of the judge, asking her for leniency and The attorney's asking for 15 years all while maintaining their innocence. The judge ended up giving them 30 years each. But what she had to say to them, I thought, was really effective. And her point being, and this is the big, yeah, they're refusing to acknowledge guilt. She flat out said to them, how can someone who's never acknowledged the wrong that they did, be rehabilitated. She said the defendants were like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, saying your victims are describing you as sadistic, misogynistic, sexual predators. And yeah, some people who wrote letters on their behalf described them as loving fathers and sons. And so they said, yeah, both of those things could be true.

00:14:44
Speaker 2: They could be, right? Do you know the ages of their kids?

00:14:47
Speaker 1: No, I don't.

00:14:48
Speaker 2: I mean, you assume fairly young. Probably young. One of them's been married six to eight years, and man, those kids go to school. Those kids can use the internet. Those kids got phones. That's awful for them. We always say, brokes, there's always, they're extra victims, and they're usually victims of the offender.

00:15:02
Speaker 1: Yes.

00:15:03
Speaker 2: His family members, his friends, those people, the lives they have to go on and live.

00:15:06
Speaker 1: They're victims as well. And look, the brothers were up there saying that they're married now, they have kids, they're family men. That was part of their argument to having a lenient sentence. But I liked what the judge said. She said, it's hard for me to believe the defendants changed their spots just like that. It strains credulity. Why can't I say it? Credulity? I'm not looking at it.

00:15:30
Speaker 2: Credulity, like truth, credulity, credit, yes.

00:15:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, credulity, that marriage would change them from sexual predators to model gentlemen. And that's exactly true. Come on, all of a sudden they got married and they changed their ways. And she said, I don't refer to people as monsters because people have the capacity to change, even rapists do. have that capacity, but your conduct was monstrous. Your crimes wreaked havoc on their lives. And she pointed to the victims. It wasn't enough to rape them. You had to humiliate them. I mean, she made it very clear she wasn't buying any of their BS.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: What is this thing they keep referring? I think someone described Diddy this way, but black eye. Yes.

00:16:17
Speaker 1: One of the rapist victims, sorry, one of the rape victims described him as having, Oren, as having black eyes.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: They describe monsters. They describe, Robes, how do you get, I know they're raised together. I'm sure they had influence over each other in some way, form, or fact. You got twins in there. But Robes, how do you get three guys who are capable of this, who would go along with like, sure, this sounds like a good plan. Let's do this. Let's rape her. Let's It's bizarre. So to her point, it looks like she was, the judge was open. Like they had a good judge, it sounds like. If they had gone in there and thrown themselves, mercy of the court. It said, I'm sorry.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: Yes. If they admitted it and said, I'm sorry.

00:16:56
Speaker 2: She was open, it sounds like.

00:16:57
Speaker 1: She might have given them 15 years, but they refused. And look again, we've got those lawsuits and the lawyers, their lawyers have all said, this is far from over. We plan to appeal the convictions. How do you appeal convictions when you have a dozen women testifying to very similar stories. And by the way, the prosecutors, they could go back. They said that the rapes began when they were in high school. They have women who were coming forward who said he raped me in high school.

00:17:22
Speaker 2: I was 13.

00:17:24
Speaker 1: They were 16. Like the brothers raped girls together. The allegations are unreal. And they began very early in their lives. I'm just thinking about their parents because they made it, they asked their parents not to come to the sentencing hearing. They sat through the trial, though, and they asked their family. So none of them were in court for the sentencing. But one of the appeals the brothers made to the judge was that they could all be in the same facility together because they said it would be much easier for their aging parents to come visit them all at the same place in Florida.

00:17:58
Speaker 2: Where do you come down on that type of thing? I'll go back to Diddy here. I remember he made that request to be at Fort Dix because his family is close enough. I don't... I can't remember that often judges granting that to.

00:18:13
Speaker 1: So she declined to make a recommendation. She said she would defer to the experts in the psychology of sex offenders about whether being housed together would be detrimental to their rehabilitation. Because she said you all are obviously terrible influences on one another.

00:18:30
Speaker 2: When people do have rehabilitation, right? Do you have... Do you put them in groups, if you will, sex offenders to sit around like AA and talk about it? And is that a part of rehab?

00:18:39
Speaker 1: But they're refusing to admit it.

00:18:40
Speaker 2: Very good point. Why do we need to go rehab? We didn't do any of this stuff. Okay. Very good point. So what do you do with these guys? Would you put them in the same prison?

00:18:48
Speaker 1: I think that, I mean, I appreciate the fact that she deferred to the experts. And I think that's the right, that was the right thing to do.

00:18:54
Speaker 2: For rehabilitation.

00:18:56
Speaker 1: Because being housed together, that's a perk for them, right? I don't know. If I were the victim, I would not want to get them or grant them anything they asked for.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: No. Rot in jail.

00:19:11
Speaker 1: In solitary confinement for 30 damn years and think about what you did until you're willing to admit it.

00:19:15
Speaker 2: You know, prison doesn't sound so bad to me, Robe, if they tell me I get to be in there with you for the next 10 years. I'm saying it does lessen.

00:19:24
Speaker 1: It does.

00:19:25
Speaker 2: It's like growing up together. Ah, we're just in a different house, but we're all here together for the next 30 years. I don't know. It seems like too much of a perk to give them.

00:19:34
Speaker 1: I agree. We shall see what ends up happening. I'm sure there will be reporting on where they end up and if they end up together. But I do think from the– and the victims, by the way, it was described by reporters who were in that courtroom that the victims were visibly disappointed at the sentence.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: The 30 years?

00:19:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. They wanted life in prison. Prosecutors wanted life in prison. And look, maybe this was somewhere in between. 30 years in a federal prison. These guys are... Let's see. I mean, let's just be honest here.

00:20:05
Speaker 2: 39 and 40. So.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: They're going to be very old men. They are not going to see their kids grow up. They are not going to enjoy the rest of their lives.

00:20:14
Speaker 2: I didn't see how long they're required. Are they going to be eligible for? That wasn't a part of the story that I saw.

00:20:20
Speaker 1: I didn't see it either.

00:20:21
Speaker 2: Required. To spend all this time. But again, the minimum is at least 15.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: At least 15. So the oldest is 40, so 65. Look, they'll miss their kids' birthdays and graduations and all the things that I think will at least give some solace, some peace to their victims. But it was a hell of a day in court yesterday and wanted to put that on your radar, everyone. We always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.