First Witness Testifies in Alexanders’ Sex Trafficking Trial

The Alexander brothers’ federal sex trafficking trial started on Tuesday, more than a year after they were arrested on charges that they drugged and raped women over the course of over a decade.

Attorneys for the government and those representing Oren and Tal Alexander issued opening arguments. In the afternoon, the court heard the first testimony in the case from a woman who said she was drugged and raped after going out with Alon and Tal Alexander in 2012.

It was the first day of proceedings in the case, where the brothers face 12 counts related to a conspiracy after prosecutors claim they “repeatedly and violently” drugged, sexually assaulted and raped dozens of women between 2008 and 2021. The brothers have denied allegations surfaced in civil lawsuits and media reports and pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Reddick Smyser began opening arguments by explaining the charges brought by the government to the 12 selected jurors. She repeated claims from the indictment alleging that the brothers raped and sexually assaulted women, sometimes together. Two of the brothers were high-flying residential brokers.

Teny Geragos, who is representing Oren with Marc Agnifilo and Zach Intrater, said the jury should ignore the “monstrous story” presented by prosecutors.

The proceedings would come down to an examination of “opportunity and shame,” she said.

Oren, along with his two brothers, lived a “party boy” lifestyle in Manhattan through his 20s and 30s, Geragos said. Though they spent their free time pursuing women through dating apps and New York City nightlife, he was participating in “hookup culture” and dating in step with their peers. She said their ways, though womanizing, did not amount to sex trafficking.

The women who encountered the brothers saw their access to exclusive venues and destinations as opportunities for unique and luxurious experiences, Geragos told the jury. Now, the defense argues, these women are seizing on the opportunity for payouts.

The brothers are facing more than two dozen civil lawsuits echoing the allegations outlined in the indictment. Some of those lawsuits have since been dismissed.

Deanna Paul, an attorney for Tal, said the eldest brother of the three was unfairly lumped into the conspiracy charge and the allegations at large because of his close association with his brothers.

Alexander Brothers Trial — (Illustration via Jane Rosenberg)

The brothers’ lifestyles, of womanizing young men with the trappings of professional success and a wealthy family, were not crimes, Paul told the jury. Referencing the text messages and emails the brothers sent to each other and their friends, she said they were sometimes “crude” and “arrogant” with how they discussed women.

“We’re not here for the asshole awards,” said Paul. “If we were, we would have it locked up and could all go home.”

She chalked the women’s allegations up to their interactions with the brothers falling short of their expectations and reacting with embarrassment or disappointment.

Howard Srebick, the attorney representing Alon, reserved his chance to make an opening statement for the beginning of the defense’s portion of the proceedings.

First testimony

A woman testifying under the pseudonym Katie Moore took the witness stand in the afternoon.

She told the court about how she first met the brothers when she was 20 years old, in the summer of 2012. She accepted an invite from a friend who met Tal earlier that summer at the Gansevoort Hotel to a party to watch the NBA Finals at an apartment belonging to Zac Efron. At the Meatpacking District loft, she encountered Tal and Alon, and went with the group from the apartment to the now-shuttered club Provocateur.

After they were escorted to a private room in the club, Moore accepted a drink from another man who was with the group before she began feeling woozy, noting her mind was sharp but her body started swaying so much she spilled her drink on him. She remembered feeling embarrassed, and said the last thing she remembered clearly was being taken aside by Alon and Tal, who told her it was “time to go.”

Aside from a “flash” of a memory of getting in a cab, Moore said her mind went dark for hours before she woke up naked, lying on a bed with Alon standing over her. He was also naked, which startled her and prompted her to say, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

He laughed, she told the court, and said, “you already did.”

She claimed she tried to fight him off before he ultimately started raping her again.

“When he was on top of me, it was like he wasn’t even there,” she said.

As he raped her, she said, Tal walked in the room and was unphased. After a short conversation with Alon, he left.

She left the apartment shortly after Alon finished raping her and fell asleep. The next day, she noticed bruises on her thigh, including one in the shape of a handprint.

When she looked up the brothers days later, she said she came across a blog post describing an allegation against Oren and Alon that they had sexually assaulted a woman years earlier.

The blog post accusing them of an attack while in high school has been talked about online and cited in industry rumors for years, despite the brothers quashing it more than a decade ago, The Real Deal previously reported. The twins sued the anonymous poster for defamation in 2013 and were awarded an injunction ordering the anonymous poster to shut the blog down.

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.”

The discovery of the blog, along with her resistance to going through with a drug test that could show she had previously smoked marijuana, confirmed her decision to not report the incident, she told the court.

“If I spoke up, I would be met with a fight,” said Moore. “I didn’t want that to define my future.”