Alexander Brothers’ Attorneys Deliver Closing Arguments

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On Wednesday, attorneys for the Alexander brothers delivered their closing arguments in the brothers’ sex trafficking trial as the case nears its end.

The three attorneys who addressed the jury each tried to distance the brothers from the conspiracy prosecutors have accused them of, and discredit the women who testified in the four weeks of the trial. Apparently borrowing from the approach seen earlier in the trial, they conceded the brothers behaved arrogantly and were crude in their communications. They also took aim at the women behind the allegations, pushing back on their memories of the encounters and questioning their motivations for testifying.

Howard Srebnick, an attorney for Alon, opened by challenging Maylen Gehret’s testimony that she was raped by Alon in 2017. Srebnick focused on the fact that Gehret didn’t say no during her alleged rape.

“If this were a silent movie, and that’s all you saw, of course, you could not say that Alon Alexander committed a sexual assault based on the testimony you heard from the witness.” Srebnick said. “Why would he ever think that she was not welcoming his attention, his advances?”

During her testimony, Gehret suggested she had been drugged, as she could barely hold up her head, which felt “really heavy,” after consuming two drinks at a bar in Aspen. This feeling got worse, she said, to the point where her body “felt like it wasn’t there.”

Srebnick argued that a high school guidance counselor, whom Gehret testified she told about the encounter, “planted” that she was raped in her mind.

Srebnick also pointed out what he called inaccuracies in testimony from alleged victims and “outcry witnesses,” who are people the women told about their alleged assaults. In one case referring to Katie Moore, who alleges she was drugged and later raped by Alon in 2012, Srebnick argued she “doesn’t want to take responsibility. She wants Alon to take responsibility for her actions.”

At one point, Srebnick turned his back to the jury and pointed at Alon when he described the way Alon messaged his brothers and his friends as “obnoxious, grotesque, pathetic.” He said the blog that Alon and Oren shared in emails was “absolutely disgusting.” But Srebnick repeated the defense’s position that the brothers are not sex traffickers.

“What we have here is the absence of evidence,” he said.

Deanna Paul, an attorney for Tal, also challenged the alleged victims’ testimony and the government’s evidence, alleging that the women are motivated by money.

Paul, who said that the brothers “acted like entitled assholes,” also said that the government has not met its burden of proof and that there is no foundation for a sex trafficking conspiracy.

“The government wants you to believe they were running a criminal enterprise,” Paul said. “These three brothers are not mobsters.”

Paul also tried to distance Tal from Oren and Alon, pointing out that the charges don’t include allegations that Tal sexually assaulted any women after he allegedly raped Maya Miller in 2014. Tal, along with his brothers, is charged with sex trafficking Bela Koval in 2016, though Koval alleges she was drugged and raped by Oren specifically.

“A criminal enterprise does not just go quiet for seven years,” Paul said. She later said that in the case of Koval, prosecutors had painted the brothers as a “three-headed monster” but encouraged the jury to consider their actions as individuals when weighing their verdict.

She also argued that prosecutors didn’t introduce any evidence proving Tal and his brothers surreptitiously drugged women or had plans to do so. She characterized messages and emails between the Alexanders and friends discussing drugs as their efforts to secure drugs for personal use.

Marc Agnifilo, one of Oren’s attorneys, approached the jury and said he was “going to try to be helpful.”

“I’m going to give you different possibilities as to what the evidence may mean,” he said. “Part of what you all have to be thinking is, ‘Why would they be making it up?’” Agnifilo said, referring to the women who testified.

Agnifilo said that “every single person who spoke on the witness stand consumed alcohol.” Maya Miller, who testified that Tal raped her in the shower in the Hamptons in 2014, said she did not drink alcohol.

Agnifilio also said the women who had boyfriends or who had recently broken up with their boyfriends had motives to lie about being raped. He went through “10 reasons to know [Moore] was not assaulted,” including that she changed her profile picture on Facebook to one taken the same night as her alleged rape by Alon.

Agnifilo suggested that the women who say they were drugged and raped were influenced by articles in The Real Deal and the New York Times detailing allegations in civil lawsuits and from other women against the brothers.

“What? They drug women? Shit. What if it happened to me?” he said.

Agnifilo also urged the jury to carefully consider the legal definition of sex trafficking, arguing the government’s theory “inverted” components of the law. He closed by thanking the jury for their patience and attention.

“I’m asking you to do hard things,” Agnifilo said. “It takes courage to acquit … you should have that courage.”

What we’re watching

Prosecutors are expected to give their rebuttal to the defense’s closing statements on Thursday morning. From there, Judge Valerie Caproni will instruct the jury on the charges, and the jury will begin deliberations. Caproni said Wednesday the jury will “definitely” begin deliberating Thursday.