These are the key players in the courtroom to follow, as the Alexander brothers’ federal sex trafficking trial begins its second week.
Former star brokers Oren and Tal, and their brother, Alon, have spent the last 13 months in jail, awaiting their late January court date and a jury verdict on federal charges of sex trafficking.
The trial, in the Southern District of New York, is expected to last for roughly four weeks, during which time 12 jurors and Judge Valerie Caproni will hear arguments from both sides and testimony from accusers and witnesses on the allegations outlined in a sixth superseding indictment.
If convicted, the brothers are facing sentences of 15 years to life across their charges. They have repeatedly denied the allegations and have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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Jury
Six men and six women, plus six alternates, were selected over four days to serve on the jury.
Jurors were screened with a questionnaire looking to weed out anything that would preclude them from serving on the trial, including their knowledge of and familiarity with certain names, companies and addresses the prosecutors and the Alexanders’ attorneys could mention in the course of the trial.
About 90 names were on the questionnaire presented to jurors as potentially testifying or being mentioned in the trial. Among the companies on the list were Douglas Elliman, the brokerage where Oren and Tal built their high-flying careers over a decade, and Official Partners, the luxury firm they left Elliman to found in 2022.
The people and companies have not been accused of any wrongdoing, and any mentions or inclusions of them in the trial remain to be seen.
Judge Valerie Caproni
The reigning authority overseeing the trial is Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York.
Caproni has served in the SDNY since 2014, when she was appointed by President Barack Obama. Before that, she served as general counsel for the FBI upon appointment from Director Robert Mueller. While on the bench, the senior judge has issued decisions on such high-profile cases as the corruption trial of former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and SUNY Polytechnic Institute head Alain Kaloyeros for rigging nearly $1 billion in state development bids.
and Howard Srebnick
In the Alexanders’ case, Caproni has been candid in pre-trial proceedings as she fielded requests from both sides and decided how the court will handle the dozens of women prosecutors are hoping to have testify.
Caproni previously sided with prosecutors, who requested the court protect the identities of 17 alleged victims whose names have not yet been made public through litigation filed against one or more of the brothers.
But her decision came with a few caveats. Women with common names will take the stand using their real first names and a pseudonymous last name, while women who were minors at the time of the alleged attacks and those with easily recognizable first names will be allowed to use a pseudonym for both their first and last names.
Though their identities will be shielded from the public, defense attorneys for the brothers know the real names of the alleged victims. The court will also inform the jury and any attendees of the trial that the alleged victims called to the stand are testifying under fake names.
Defense Team
Each brother retained his own defense attorneys.
Oren tapped attorneys Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos and Zach Intrater in August — a month after their client, rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, was found not guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. The attorneys were dubbed the “dream team” by the rapper’s family after he was instead convicted on only two lesser charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.
Representing Tal are Milton Williams, a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, and Deanna Paul, who was previously a legal affairs reporter with the Wall Street Journal before serving for six years as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and Queens District Attorney’s Offices. Paul is also the daughter of the late David Paul, the former CenTrust Bank chairman who was convicted of federal fraud charges in 1993 during the Savings and Loans Crisis. Alexander Kahn, a former assistant district attorney with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, is also part of Tal’s defense team.
Miami-based attorney Howard Srebnick is representing Alon, along with Jackie Perczek. Srebnick was part of a team of attorneys, including his late law partner, Roy Black, who helped negotiate the 2008 plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein that allowed him to serve only about a year in county jail in Florida for soliciting prostitution. Srebnick also represented Justin Bieber in his 2014 DUI case in Miami.
Juda Engelmayer
Crisis communications strategist Juda Engelmayer has served as the link between the brothers’ defense claims and the outside world. The brothers tapped Engelmayer in the summer, and his recent work has included regular dispatches narrating new filings and developments from hearings.
Engelmayer recaps hearings in email newsletters, which focus on arguments such as the government overreaching and the defense’s aim to poke holes in the prosecution’s indictments, including their timelines. The Alexanders’ friends and family receive their own version of the newsletters and updates Engelmayer sends to the media.
In a Jan. 19 email, Engelmayer wrote that Caproni “has sounded more like one of the prosecutors than an objective jurist.”
Engelmayer — who was dubbed the “pied piper of pariahs” in a New York Times article published days before he announced his employment with the Alexanders — set up his own shop in 2012 and later built a name for himself representing Harvey Weinstein. His client roster has since included con artist Anna Delvey, OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone and Combs.
“Working for Harvey put me on the map,” Engelmayer told the Times. “Is that a bad thing to say? I don’t know. It’s the truth.”
Engelmayer has worked from the sidelines, but he’s earned a reference in allegations that a publicist hired by the Alexanders attempted to undermine a woman’s credibility by placing opinion pieces in the media. The woman, known as “Victim 1,” filed a civil lawsuit and made the claim to prosecutors, but she didn’t name the publicist. Engelmayer responded to the allegations in a statement.
“I’m not working to ‘sully’ anyone’s name, nor to smear or intimidate any accuser, and I have no knowledge of, nor involvement with, any private investigator,” Engelmayer said. “I’ve never been asked to do any of that.”
When asked why he decided to take on the Alexanders as clients, Engelmayer pointed to what he described as a “profound disconnect between the public storyline and what exists in the evidentiary record.” He added that he views his role as not to judge his clients’ alleged behavior but to use material in the public record to make sure the narrative around the case “is not one-sided, distorted, or frozen in accusation-only form.”
Family, Friends & Spouses
The Alexander brothers’ parents, mother Orly and father Shlomy, have been fixtures at hearings in New York and Miami and a driving force in determining the brothers’ next legal moves. They have stood by their sons as others previously in their inner circles tried to distance themselves from the family.
After their sons’ arrest in December 2024, Shlomy and Orly appeared prepared to spend the entirety of their wealth in a bid to secure their sons’ release on house arrest — a request federal judges have repeatedly denied, citing prosecutors’ arguments that they pose a flight risk and danger to the community.
At the time, the parents suggested that their assets, combined with those of their sons, were worth about $1 billion. The family assets include Shlomy and Orly’s waterfront home in Bal Harbour, the office building where their security company, Kent Security, is headquartered, plus homes in Israel and the Bahamas. The family also owns a 48-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado.
As legal bills have piled up, Shlomy has tried to sell some of his sons’ properties. In June, the family sold the waterfront Miami Beach mansion where Oren lived with his wife, Kamila Hansen Alexander, before his arrest. A hidden buyer paid about $52 million for the 10,000-square-foot home. Orly signed the deed on Oren’s behalf.
The brothers’ in-court circle has included Gil Neuman, Orly’s brother and a fellow executive at the family’s Kent Security firm; Alon’s wife, Shani Alexander; and their oldest brother, Niv Alexander.
Prosecutors + Victims’ lawyers
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York brought the charges against the brothers. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams made the announcement in December 2024. Andrew Jones, Elizabeth Anne Espinosa, Kaiya Mary Alexandri Arroyo and Madison Reddick Smyser are serving as attorneys on the case for the government.
Evan Torgan of the law firm Torgan Cooper + Aaron has represented women who have accused the brothers of sexual assault and rape since allegations first emerged in 2024.
Torgan still looms large over the trial, representing 11 women included as victims in the indictment, two of whom came forward with claims from when they were minors. The brothers have accused him of improperly working with women to take the stand against the Alexanders, which Caproni has pushed back on in pre-trial hearings.