Drug Messages Revealed at Alexanders’ Sex Trafficking Trial

The second week of the Alexander brothers’ trial closed with a trove of messages showing how the brothers coordinated to secure the drugs that prosecutors say they used to incapacitate women before they were sexually assaulted.

In scores of messages, Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander and other men discussed securing drugs such as MDMA, ketamine and GHB for trips where some women allege they were drugged and raped.

The evidence, presented at the end of the second week of the brothers’ sex trafficking trial, followed days of testimony from women who described meeting the brothers before abruptly losing control of their bodies and inexplicably blacking out before they were raped by one or more of the brothers.

In one exchange in September 2011, Alon talks about an upcoming party, telling the recipient to “throw some panty dropper pills in the dishes sent to our table.”

The group chats, emails and texts reinforce what prosecutors have alleged was part of the brothers’ decade-long sex trafficking scheme, which included using the promise of luxury travel and exclusive experiences to lure women to destinations such as the Hamptons and Tulum, where they were subsequently drugged and raped.

The brothers have pleaded not guilty and deny the allegations.

The allegations form the basis of the first count in the government’s indictment, which charges the three brothers with engaging in a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. The charge carries a 15-year minimum sentence and is one of 12 counts included in the latest version of the indictment, unsealed last month.

Some exchanges originate from Oren and Tal’s Douglas Elliman email addresses over their 10-year stint leading the brokerage’s Alexander Team. In one email sent in 2015, a woman working as his assistant tells Oren that he needs to wait 25 days before renewing his Ambien prescription, as he’d picked up a refill a few days prior. Oren initially replied that he had not, but later wrote, “Alon did. Sorry.”

In another email exchange a month later, Oren asked his former assistant to call in another prescription for him, to which she replied, “You are out of New York prescriptions,” before pointing him to a Miami Beach Walgreens that could supply a refill within the hour. Another email includes Oren’s doctor, who writes that the prescription “should have been faxed this afternoon.”

A group chat exchange from January 2012 shows Oren and Alon discussing bringing “party favors” aboard the “Groove Cruise.” The three-day music festival and party cruise from Miami to the Bahamas was discussed earlier this week by a woman who testified under the name Rhonda Stone. She claims she was assaulted by Oren and Alon while on the cruise, and recounted feeling “extremely” intoxicated after consuming some of a drink in a private cabin with the twin brothers.

In one message, Alon tells a man named Romi Mawardi, who was not on the cruise, that he brought “party favors” with him. He tells Mawardi that “twin DP was special on the menu” during the cruise, using shorthand for “double penetration.” Mawardi leads an Orlando-based hospitality company.

In a separate exchange between Oren and film director Dylan Trussell, Oren relays a message from Lee Kalt, a DJ who was scheduled to perform on the cruise.

“From Lee: ‘Put it in your checked bags. Not carry. When you go carry-on you have to walk past 20 dogs, DEA, Customs and Miami Police,’” Oren writes.

After the cruise, Alon messaged another friend, a man named Elliot Lief, that he didn’t sleep and “was just hunting [the] whole time.”

Other messages between the brothers and other men presented by prosecutors reference specific drugs, such as GHB, quaaludes, Ambien and Xanax, which can produce effects similar to those described by some women who alleged they were raped by one or more of the Alexanders.

GHB is “useful to commit sexual assault” because it is colorless, odorless and “virtually tasteless,” said Dr. Stacey Hail, a medical expert who testified for the prosecution. The drug, along with alcohol, benzodiazepines and others, belongs to a class of substances referred to as sedative-hypnotics, which can cause loss of motor function, impaired consciousness and memory loss.

Some of the messages with the brothers suggested that they and their friends planned to use those drugs with women, though attorneys for the defendants described some of the references as “crude joke[s].”

In another message from 2020, Erik Yehezkel, a friend of the brothers, writes:

“Yeah, let’s get these girls real wasted, maybe we’ll be able to bang them easier.” Alon responded with some laughing crying emojis and said that they “can put natural wine in cups.”

Yehezkel responds with “sounds more our speed these days,” and writes that they “used to do it with tequila and Xanax.” Alon then wrote, “Make sure the wine has probiotics.”

While the jury was out of the courtroom, attorneys for Oren and Alon argued that the messages between Alon and Yehezkel were referring to a couple’s trip and that the brothers’ wives and Yehezkel’s girlfriend were with them on the vacation.

“Yehezkel is making an in poor taste joke, but that’s the joke,” said Teny Geragos, one of Oren’s attorneys. “It is a couple’s trip they’re all on.”

Yehezkel is also mentioned as the creator of a group chat in 2016 called “Lions in Tulum,” which includes all three Alexanders, Mawardi and others. In the chat, Yehezkel writes, “I just need to handle drugs,” to which Tal responds, “Yes.”

“I don’t want [MDMA] around too much,” Yehezkel writes. “Nothing gets done with that.” He then writes, “Coke, shrooms, and G. [MDMA] makes the girls want to chase the fucking party.”