Alexanders arrested: How two decades of rape and assault allegations turned into charges 

Handcuffed and in green safety smocks, corrections officers led twin brothers Oren and Alon Alexander to a camera on the way to their first appearances before a judge. 

Hours earlier, federal authorities showed up to Oren and Alon’s multimillion-dollar waterfront homes by jet ski and on land and to their parents’ home in Bal Harbour, where Tal surrendered. They arrested all three of them on federal sex trafficking charges.

“Come outside with your hands up,” a federal agent ordered Oren Alexander in the early hours of Dec. 11 in a video obtained by The Real Deal. 

Facing their state charges of sexual battery in a Miami courtroom, the camera captured Oren and Alon looking disheveled, without their usual polish.

The scenes in Miami were a shocking turn for the brothers. After a decade spent crafting an image of luxury and wealth, Oren and Tal were no longer living the lives of their clients, buyers and sellers of some of the most expensive residential properties in Miami, New York and elsewhere. 

The crush of allegations and what has since been revealed by reporters and prosecutors paints an explicit picture of the sordid private lives of these star residential brokers. What happens next won’t just put the Alexanders (and perhaps others in their orbit) on trial. It will also lay bare how long a culture defined by relationships, access and power can shield alleged awful secrets or heinous crimes.

The arrests marked the culmination of months of turbulence, following the initial public reports of rape accusations against them. Prosecutors detailed a playbook that began in high school but escalated with their status as top brokers and involved more people who didn’t have the last name “Alexander.”

They persuaded women to join them in places like the Hamptons and Tulum, offering to pay for travel, hotels and other experiences only to allegedly assault them when they arrived, prosecutors said. In other cases, the brothers allegedly drugged women they met socially and led them to their homes or another location where the attacks occurred. 

The horrific accounts managed to stay out of public view until June, when TRD reported on lawsuits alleging Oren and Alon raped two women in New York more than a decade ago. A week after TRD’s initial story, another lawsuit was filed against Tal, accusing him and Alon of raping a woman while Oren watched. 

The floodgates opened. In a matter of months, roughly 20 years of allegations surfaced from women alleging attacks by one or more of the brothers. Some came in comments on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit, others in stories published in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and to an FBI task force that began speaking with alleged survivors in June. 

Among those who spoke out were women they met at bars, nightclubs and on dating apps in New York and Miami, as well as former colleagues at Douglas Elliman. 

“As adults, the Alexander Brothers’ serial sexual violence only escalated.”

–Prosecutors wrote in a letter to federal judges in New York and Florida

The allegations coming to light prompted a behind-the-scenes effort to discredit women who had gone public with their claims (and several who had not), prosecutors say. The brothers flatly denied the accounts, as they had reportedly done for years. But they wouldn’t be able to silence the allegations this time.

Despite knowing they were under federal investigation, the brothers boasted to others in real estate that they were going to win the lawsuits that first exposed allegations of their attacks, sources told TRD. They were spotted out and about in the Hamptons, Colorado, Miami Beach and elsewhere. Alon’s wife, Shani, continued to teach pilates. The brothers kept going to Barry’s Bootcamp. 

But the consequences were starting to seep in. 

Official Partners, the business Tal and Oren had founded together two years earlier began to take hits. Agents fled the company, called Official Partners. Clients terminated their listing agreements. The firm’s co-founders left. Their former partner, the white-label firm Side, is suing them for more than $4 million in allegedly unpaid debt. 

All the while, federal authorities were building their case. They interviewed 40 women and charged the brothers with crimes that carry potential sentences in prison of 15 years to life.

A few days after the arrest, at Tal’s bond hearing in federal court, the family came to support them. Oren’s and Alon’s wives were in the back of the courtroom. They scoffed when the U.S. Attorney called Tal a flight risk and when a special agent testified about the women she had interviewed who claimed they were raped by one or more of the brothers. Shlomy and Orly — Oren, Alon and Tal’s parents — had already provided their waterfront Bal Harbor home as collateral in the state case. 

An open secret

Whispers about one or more of the brothers allegedly assaulting women were an open secret in their social circles in New York and Miami, according to reported allegations and prosecutors. One rumor was that in high school, Oren and Alon, who are identical twins, had taken turns raping women at a party. Another was that there was a Miami Herald article referring to an alleged rape around this time that had been wiped from the internet.

Women told investigators that in high school, the brothers and others who participated in the alleged attacks would brag about the assaults, saying they wanted to “do it again.”

Once they were adults, the brothers provided women drugs like cocaine, mushrooms and GHB, also considered a “date rape drug,” prosecutors said. After some instances, the boasting continued, according to court documents. In other accounts, one or more of the brothers threatened survivors to stay silent.

“As adults, the Alexander Brothers’ serial sexual violence only escalated,” prosecutors wrote in a letter to federal judges in New York and Florida. 

As they rose to the top of the industry, agents in New York and Miami told TRD they’d been warned about Tal and Oren’s behavior, some in specific terms and others more generally, and were cautioned to stay away from them. 

There were similar warnings in their business dealings, but for a different reason: Many did not want their buyers or sellers to meet Oren or Tal — out of fear they would steal their clients. 

Womanizing and debauchery were a known part of their image, but rumors of their behavior barely made it beyond the grapevine. Many had stories about the brothers but few had the social or professional capital to publicly accuse them. 

If they were worried about their alleged behavior ruining their current success, they didn’t show it. They had shut down allegations before.

When blog posts surfaced accusing Oren and Alon of raping a woman in high school, the twins sued the anonymous poster for defamation and, in 2014, were awarded an injunction. The blog later shut down. But screenshots of a post with the accusation, along with other anonymous accusations, would pop up in Reddit threads, only to disappear once again. 

Mentions of the accusations were replaced in Google results by a set of blogs with posts titled “Something about Alon and Oren Alexander” and “Twin brothers setting benchmark for the world,” which described them as “famous twins” who were together living a “very successful life.”

Survivors of alleged attacks, in lawsuits and interviews with investigators and journalists, described the Alexanders’ efforts to intimidate them. Angelica Parker, who sued the Alexanders in June and alleged Tal and Alon raped her in 2012 while Oren watched, claimed they bragged to her friends about having sex with her, according to the complaint. 

Parker alleged years later that Tal tried to assault her again when they were both guests at the same house, but she stopped the attack by screaming until others heard her and asked him to leave. Her objections came with a price — she claims he started referring to her as the “king’s rat.”

“Start to think about reputation you want out there. We are on top of the game and only thing can bring us down is some Hoe complaining.”
Oren’s text to Tal in 2021

“Understood, did someone complain?”
tal’s reply

Elliman agent Jessica Cohen blacked out and woke up in a hospital alone after sharing a drink with the Alexanders at a birthday party in 2010, she told the New York Times in July. Cohen said she has no memory of what happened to her, but her friend showed her pictures from that night, which depict her with all three brothers. One shows her passed out on Tal’s shoulder, her hand in his. 

Three weeks later, Cohen said Tal approached her at an event for Gotham Magazine. He took her drink from her hand and told her to be careful about protecting people’s reputations, which she told the Times she took as a threat.  

The Alexanders made other attempts to silence alleged survivors, prosecutors argued. One woman, they wrote, said she was “forcibly digitally penetrated” by Tal while Oren was in the room, and when she told people about the attack, Tal threatened to sue her for defamation. Tal and Oren also filed a police report against her, accusing her of harassment. 

Another told authorities Tal threatened her after she shared with people that he drugged her. 

“Until earlier this year, the defendants’ conduct went largely unchecked,” prosecutors wrote in the letter. “The Alexander brothers knew that it was critical to ensure that none of their victims went public.”

In 2021, Oren texted Tal: “Start to think about reputation you want out there. We are on top of the game and only thing can bring us down is some Hoe complaining.” 

Tal’s reply: “Understood, did someone complain?” 

When the rape allegations surfaced earlier this year, prosecutors say Alon Alexander got to work. Alon, an executive at his family’s private security firm, Kent Security, started assembling files on the women who had accused him publicly, and others who had not come forward with allegations. 

Prosecutors described Alon’s actions as “an apparent attempt to discredit their accusers” and said they’re still investigating the brothers’ “obstructive conduct.”

The feds seem to be aware in proceedings that the brothers have the will and resources to dodge the full penalty again.

Tal’s attorneys proposed a $115 million bail package that would use his and his family’s properties as collateral. If Tal, Alon or Oren were to flee, the government could seize all the properties. The judge denied this request and ordered Tal remain in federal custody. As Tal was escorted out of the federal courtroom, handcuffed, he put his hand to his heart and looked at his family. 

The judge deemed him a flight risk. In an appeal filed days later, Tal’s attorneys offered bail “in any amount secured by the entirety of their assets.” The judge denied this as well. 

More to come 

Part of the Alexanders’ untouchable quality during their time at the top of the brokerage game was their close relationships with people in high places. 

They partied with their celebrity clients. They traveled to places like the Bahamas with their colleagues, offering the promise of more business. And they secured relationships that would solidify their business for years to come. 

Their early careers blossomed alongside a close relationship to Douglas Elliman’s longtime CEO and chairman Howard Lorber. The young brokers earned his attendance at Oren’s 27th birthday party and rides on the private jet he used during his time at the top of the company. 

“My father likes to call him my second father,” Oren wrote in a 2013 New York Post dispatch. 

Lorber referred them business and protected them through their rise as top producers at the brokerage, sources say. While at Elliman, sources say some within the company referred to them as “the rapists.” Elliman declined to comment.

The brokerage has apparently been pulled into the federal probe. Days after their arrests, Elliman ordered employees to preserve documents and communications relevant to the Alexanders. (The company said that preserving these documents doesn’t indicate “anything improper.”) 

Elliman has sought to distance itself from its former stars but has been unsuccessful. 

Lorber resigned suddenly in October, which the company billed as retirement by his own choice. But the Wall Street Journal later reported his exit was under pressure from board concerns with the company’s financial performance and allegations against the Alexanders. 

Also publicly in their orbit were the developers they worked and socialized with, including Michael Stern and Jonathan Landau. Stern leads JDS Development Group, which cut ties with the Alexanders’ brokerage, Official, when the allegations came out this summer. Landau’s firm also replaced Official with another brokerage. 

The Alexanders’ social and professional web appears to be where prosecutors are looking next. 

Ohad Fisherman, named in a state sexual battery case alongside Oren and Alon, is a family friend who previously worked as a broker with the Alexanders’ Official and was mistakenly described as a cousin by authorities. Fisherman learned of the charge while on his honeymoon in Japan and turned himself into authorities upon returning to Florida. 

The charges sparked a fresh set of allegations. Since the Alexanders were indicted in December, additional women have come forward with allegations that they were assaulted by one or more of the brothers. 

Two women came forward to the Miami Herald, including one who responded to the news by telling the Miami Beach Police Department Oren raped her at the Versace mansion in 2014. 

Another expands the window of accounts previously known. A 2003 police report first reported by the Miami New Times shows an account by a 14-year-old who told police she was gang raped by a group at a party that included Oren and Alon, who were 15 at the time. 

Prosecutors in New York were adamant there is “more to come” in the course of their pursuing charges against the brothers. 

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said while announcing the federal charges against the brothers that prosecutors were operating with the belief that “[the Alexanders] were not acting alone.”

“We’ll continue investigating,” Williams said, “As long, as hard as it takes to get to the bottom of the full scope of the conduct.”