Tracking the rise, relationships and allegations around the Alexander brothers

How the real estate dealmakers at the center of resi’s biggest scandal rose to the top

Timeline of Allegations Against Alexander brothers

Tal and Oren Alexander (Illustration by The Real Deal; Getty)

Jun 22, 2024, 8:00 AM

Top real estate brokers Oren and Tal Alexander are at the center of lawsuits and multiple allegations that they raped and sexually assaulted women, in what one housing expert called the “worst kept secret” in the industry.

Lawsuits against Oren and his twin brother Alon, first reported by The Real Deal earlier this month, led to swift action by Oren’s business partners. He stepped back from the company he built off of the Alexander Team brand with Tal. Later, that company, Official, dropped his real estate licenses in New York and Florida as his co-founders said they were in the process of removing him as an owner.

The following week, a woman sued Tal, Alon and Oren, alleging that Tal and Alon raped her at the same time in an attack that Oren allegedly orchestrated.

Official has not yet acknowledged whether Tal will continue to head the Alexander Team or maintain his status as a co-founder. Over the weekend, before the lawsuit against him was filed, Tal wrote in an internal memo that he expected attorneys “will soon try to lump me in with the allegations against Alon and Oren.”

News of the lawsuits also elicited an overwhelming response outside of the Alexander camp. In the following days, plaintiffs’ attorney Evan Torgan told TRD that 28 more alleged victims had contacted him and the Wall Street Journal reported a week later that five women have similar allegations against Oren, dating back to high school and as recent as 2020.

“Rumors of bad behavior by the Alexander brothers have been the worst-kept secret in New York and Florida real estate circles for well more than a decade,” Jonathan Miller, an appraiser and housing expert who authors Douglas Elliman’s quarterly and new signed contracts report, wrote in his newsletter.

As the future of the Alexander Team and its ties to Official hang in the balance, TRD tracked the Alexanders’ rise to prominence and how the recently surfaced allegations fit into the trajectory of their careers.

The brothers grew up in South Florida, attending Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School near North Miami Beach. Their father, spec home developer Shlomy Alexander, taught them the business and introduced them to the right people. They spent weekends at his construction sites, Oren told TRD in 2019.

The two brothers parted ways for college, with Tal playing tennis and studying marketing at Hofstra University on Long Island and Oren focusing on finance at the University of Colorado Boulder.

2008

Oren and Tal teamed up in 2008, when Oren was just 21 and Tal 22. While they pursued real estate sales and rentals, Alon got into his family’s private security business.

The brothers moved to New York City, where Oren joined Douglas Elliman and Tal sought to establish his own company focused on luxury rentals, which he launched the following year. Tal told the Miami Herald in 2019 that his business helped fuel Oren’s start on the sell side.

“I was showing apartments to an elderly couple who were looking to sell their place and move downtown,” Tal told the Herald at the time. “I told them they had to meet my brother.”

2009

Shortly after moving to the city, Oren closed his first major deal, an $8.2 million penthouse at the Park Imperial in Midtown. He represented the buyer, a prominent Miami-based attorney Jim Ferraro who he met while the two were skiing in Aspen.

“With Jim, I jetted with him to Miami for a weekend. I jetted with him to Martha’s Vineyard for a weekend. I jetted with him to Aspen—that’s when the deal was put together,” Oren told the Observer in 2009.

Oren continued to work with Ferraro, including representing him in a deal for the neighboring penthouse, which Ferraro purchased in 2013. Ferraro initially represented Oren and Alon in the two lawsuits filed against them in March, though the twins replaced him with a criminal defense attorney earlier this week, TRD reported.

2010

Rebecca Mandel’s lawsuit alleges she was raped and assaulted by Oren and Alon in September 2010. Mandel met the twins at a now-shuttered nightclub in the Meatpacking District the year prior, when she was 18, according to the complaint.

She claims she ran into the pair at the same venue on the night of the alleged incidents. Her lawsuit accuses Alon of drugging her drink at the club and alleges the brothers later pinned her down and raped her at the apartment they shared at the time.

This same year, Oren and Julian Cohen, a South Florida agent, listed a waterfront Indian Creek mansion their fathers, Shlomy and Felix Cohen, co-developed. The asking price was $60 million. In December, they hosted an Art Basel Miami Beach bash at the property; guests included Elliman’s Dottie Herman.

2011

In the year following the alleged attack, Oren was making the rounds in the press as the broker to watch in New York City and Miami. At 23, Oren was already leading a four-person team at Elliman and marketing a few major listings, including a $13 million co-op on Central Park West and the $60 million South Florida mansion.

While he climbed the career ladder, he was also building a reputation as one of the industry’s party boys. Oren made regular appearances at then-popular watering holes, Mister H and the Mulberry Project. That same year, Gotham Magazine named him and Alon as two of the city’s hottest bachelors.

2012

Tal joined Oren as a broker at Elliman, and the two founded the Alexander Team, which would later become one of the top-producing teams in markets across the country.

Kate Whiteman alleges Oren and Alon raped and assaulted her in May, according to her lawsuit. Whiteman claims Alon grabbed her as she was leaving a nightclub in the Hamptons and brought her to a party house known as Sir Ivan’s Castle, where the twins allegedly attacked her.

Three months after the alleged assault, Oren set the record for the most expensive sale in Miami at the time when he sold the 30,000-square-foot Indian Creek estate that his father and Felix Cohen co-developed for $47 million.

In the fall, Angelica Parker claims she was raped by Tal and Alon in an attack facilitated and witnessed by Oren in the apartment they were sharing at the time, according to her lawsuit.

2013

Oren and Alon sued the anonymous publisher of a blog and other message board posts for defamation, after the publisher accused the brothers of rape. The lawsuit, filed in Florida, claimed the publisher spread “false and defamatory statements” about the brothers and denied that the two had ever raped anyone.

The judge later issued a temporary injunction, ordering the publisher to remove the posts. The blog has also been taken down.

Around this time, Oren worked out of the sales center for Faena House, an oceanfront Alan Faena development in Miami Beach that was backed by Len Blavatnik. Elliman handled sales of the project. In an interview with TRD in 2019, Oren said he used the sales office to network with Miami’s top brokers.

2014-2018

Tal Alexander, Oren Alexander, Alon Alexander

Tal and Oren were rising in the ranks at Elliman. At the end of the four-year period, the Alexander Team landed among the top 20 agents and teams across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, according to TRD’s 2018 ranking.

As the duo amassed their empire, they were pictured partying at Manhattan hot spots, passing the summer months Out East and traveling with clients to destinations across the country.

In 2014, Oren and Alon threw a 27th birthday bash at the now-closed Beautique, with Elliman chairman Howard Lorber and developer Zach Vella in attendance. Two years later, Tal celebrated his 30th birthday in the Hamptons. The brothers traveled to Las Vegas with JDS Development’s Michael Stern for the Mayweather-McGregor “money fight” in 2017.

2019

Tal, based in New York, and Oren, based in Miami Beach, represented billionaire investor Ken Griffin in the most expensive residential deal to ever close in the United States. Griffin paid $240 million in January for a quadplex penthouse at 220 Central Park South on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row.

Just a few days later, the pair — now heading a team of 10 agents — broke another record in Miami when they were involved in the $50 million resale of the same Indian Creek mansion, setting a new record for single-family home sales in Miami-Dade County.

The Alexander Team also led sales and marketing at Bizzi & Partners’ 565 Broome, a 112-condo building in Soho, and at JDS Development’s 111 West 57th Street on Billionaires’ Row.

2020

Oren and Tal begin planning their exit from Elliman along with former Elliman employees Nicole Oge, Richard Jordan and Andrew Wachtfogel, Oge told Bloomberg in 2022. The Alexanders don’t leave Elliman for another two years.

2021

In the year before Tal and Oren left Elliman, the Alexander Team report notching $1.8 billion in sales, according to the New York Times.

2022

Tal and Oren launch their brokerage Official, backed by white label firm Side, over the summer. Oge, Jordan and Wachtfogel join them as co-founders and were tasked with overseeing the day-to-day operations, Oren told TRD in an interview in Miami that December.

Before the company announced its launch, Whiteman filed a summons in New York, notifying Oren, Alon and Ivan Wilzig, the owner of Sir Ivan’s Castle, of her plans to file a lawsuit. However, she didn’t move forward with filing a complaint at the time.

2023

Official takes on sales and marketing of two new major condo developments in South Florida. Those include developer Michael Shvo’s Rosewood-branded Raleigh redevelopment in Miami Beach and Michael Stern’s Dolce & Gabbana-branded condo in Brickell. Official also launches sales of Jonathan Landau’s boutique Indian Creek Residences & Yacht Club condo project in Bay Harbor Islands.

In May, Tal and Oren sell the waterfront Miami Beach mansion they shared with Alon for $27.5 million — at the time the most expensive sale on Flamingo Drive. Their father developed the 11,500-square-foot abode in 2017.

Official expands to Los Angeles, poaching top agent Tyrone McKillen from Compass. L.A. marks Official’s fourth market, adding to New York City, South Florida and the Hamptons.

Tal and Oren also tie the knot with their respective wives. Oren married model Kamila Hansen in Islamorada, Florida in April. Tal married venture capital executive and entrepreneur Arielle Kogut in the fall.

A month after Tal’s wedding, attorneys for Mandel and Whiteman filed summons in New York, notifying Oren and Alon of the forthcoming lawsuits.

2024

On March 8, Mandel and Whiteman’s attorneys file complaints in the two lawsuits accusing Oren and Alon of raping and assaulting them more than a decade ago. TRD first reported the allegations earlier this month.

Fallout was swift once the allegations were made public. Days after the news broke, the plaintiffs’ attorney Evan Torgan told TRD that 28 more alleged victims had contacted him. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported allegations from five women who claimed they’d been sexually assaulted by Oren as far back as high school and as recent as 2020.

Official’s Nicole Oge said she and her partners severed ties with Oren after reports of the allegations. His license is no longer active in Florida or New York. Sources also told TRD that JDS Development planned to replace Official as the head of sales at its Dolce & Gabbana-branded project in Miami’s Brickell.

Jim Ferraro withdrew as the Alexanders’ attorney just over a week after the lawsuits were reported, and Oren and Alon replaced him with New York attorney Isabelle Kirshner, who has a history of defending clients against high-profile allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Tal, along with Alon, was accused of raping and assaulting Parker in New York in 2012, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday. The complaint also named Oren, who is accused of coordinating and witnessing the alleged attack.

On Friday, June 21, Rebecca Mandel, one of the plaintiffs who initiated one of the first two lawsuits, replaced Torgan with a new attorney, Jayne Conroy of Simmons Hanly Conroy. Mandel also hired former prosecutor Stuart Slotnick from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney to present evidence of the alleged sexual assault to state and federal prosecutors.