Witness Claims Alexander Brothers Raped Woman in 2009

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On Wednesday, we heard from a woman who says she witnessed Tal Alexander and one of his brothers raping a woman in the Hamptons in 2009.

Avishan Bodjnoud, who told the jury she was invited to a house in Southampton by David Rabello, a friend of the Alexanders, described seeing Tal, one of his brothers and two or three other men pulling a woman by her wrists out of the home and into the backyard.

Boudjnoud said she followed them outside, where she saw Tal and one of his brothers raping the woman in the Jacuzzi. (Rabello’s name came up last week when prosecutors presented text messages with the brothers about securing drugs abroad.)

“I could hear the girl screaming. I could hear the brothers getting pleasure. It was just horrific,” Bodjnoud said. Before she left the house the next morning, she used her eyeliner to write “Rapists!” on a door, which was shown in an image presented by prosecutors to the court.

Bodjnoud described feeling “shocked” and “terrified,” but said she did not call the police or notify authorities, a point that was central to defense attorneys’ cross-examination.

“Not once did you call 911?” asked Milton Williams, an attorney for Tal Alexander. “Did you run up to the other women in the house and say, ‘Ladies, we have to do something?’”

Bodjnoud said that at the time, she felt like she had “no allies” in the house. She also said that she “wasn’t in a position” to notify the authorities, citing a conversation she had with Rabello after leaving the Hamptons during which he allegedly told her that she’d embarrassed him and that the Alexanders were powerful and well-connected.

Prosecutors are largely relying on the testimony of alleged victims and their friends or family they told about the attacks to support their allegations that the brothers coordinated among themselves and with other men to lure, drug and attack women. They’ve also presented emails, text messages and other communications to bolster their case, but have not introduced toxicology, medical or prior police reports — a gap the defense has seized on in statements to the court and cross-examination.

Bodjnoud is the first to take the stand and claim she witnessed an alleged attack directly.

Though she didn’t come forward at the time, Bodjnoud reported what she’d seen to law enforcement in December 2024 after seeing an article reporting the brothers’ arrest. She said she decided to come forward to do what she “should have done in 2009.”

“I feel responsible,” said Bodjnoud, who was 27 years old at the time of the alleged attack. Attorneys for the brothers asked her multiple times whether she was one of the oldest people staying in the home, pointing out that Rabello and Tal were in their early 20s at the time.

One of Oren’s lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, questioned Bodjnoud about the initial email she sent to the FBI tipline in which she said she “couldn’t see” the alleged rape but “could hear it” from her bedroom window. Bodjnoud said the statement was consistent with her testimony and that she did not share all of the details of her account in that email.

Howard Srebnick, an attorney representing Alon, also asked her whether she’d previously told prosecutors that she “assumed” the woman was being sexually assaulted. Bodjnoud insisted she hadn’t.

“It was not an assumption,” she said, adding that if it were, she wouldn’t have written on the door or reported it to the FBI. “I knew it was rape.”

More from the alleged Aspen attack

We also resumed testimony by a woman testifying under the name Kayley Brown, who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Alon in 2017. Brown’s complete account comes two days after Maylen Gehret testified she was raped by Alon after Gehret, Brown and another friend met the brothers at an Aspen nightclub.

Brown described feeling like she had been drugged when leaving the club with her two friends and the brothers, who invited them to an “after party” but led them to an empty hotel room. Describing her memory as in “flashes,” she described Alon exiting the bathroom before getting in bed with her and sticking his fingers down her pants and inside of her. Gehret testified this week and claimed in her 2025 lawsuit against Alon and Oren that Alon led her to the hotel room bathroom and raped her, before exiting the bathroom and assaulting Brown.

Seated in the courtroom’s gallery Wednesday were the Alexanders’ parents Orly and Shlomy, Alon’s wife Shani and their oldest brother, Niv.

— Katherine Kallergis and Sheridan Wall

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