Week 2 of Alexander Brothers Sex Trafficking Trial Starts

The second week of the Alexander brothers’ sex trafficking trial resumed testimony on the first video of an alleged attack presented in the case, showing Oren Alexander having sex with a 17-year-old woman who says she had no memory of the encounter or recording before she was contacted by the government.

The video and two witnesses that led off the week’s proceedings add to the growing list of evidence and women presented to the court by prosecutors alleging brothers Oren, Alon and Tal worked together in a conspiracy to lure, incapacitate and attack women. The brothers have pleaded not guilty and deny the allegations.

Attorneys for the brothers on Monday morning contended with potential complications from outside the courtroom, requesting a mistrial following reporting that the brothers were named in the DOJ’s latest tranche of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. After questioning individual jury members on whether they had been made aware of anything about the Alexander brothers outside of the courtroom, which all of the jurors denied, Judge Valerie Caproni denied the request.

Monday’s proceedings picked back up on testimony from a woman seen in a video that prosecutors have cited as the basis of Oren’s sexual exploitation of a minor charge. The file, found on a backup of Oren’s computer, was sent the same night it was captured.

A woman testifying under the pseudonym Amelia Rosen told the court that she was contacted by the government with a video of the alleged rape, which she had no recollection of and had never seen. The video was shown privately to individual members of the jury.

She described working as a model when she was 17 years old, including taking cocaine and other drugs and knowing promoters who invited models to dinners and other events. Rosen, who was born in what was then the U.S.S.R. and is now Ukraine, emigrated to the U.S. when she was 14 years old.

“It was very painful and upsetting and very confusing for me to see the things in the video,” she said, calling it “one of the hardest moments of my life.”

The video, she said, showed two men having sex with her. “I’m not in an alert state. I look under the influence and I’m not present,” she said.

Marc Agnifilo, an attorney for Oren, briefly cross-examined Rosen, first confirming the video was captured two months shy of her 18th birthday. He also pressed her on the identities of promoters she came into contact with at the time, who worked with nightclubs and would take models to dinner in exchange for their attendance at certain nightlife spots.

Another weekend in the Hamptons allegedly gone wrong

Monday also saw testimony from a woman testifying under the pseudonym Bela Koval, who alleges she was raped by Oren in 2016.

Koval testified that she was drugged and raped by Oren during a weekend in the Hamptons in the summer of 2016. Koval, then 23 years old, matched with Alon on the dating app Raya and her friend matched with Oren. Through her friend, the brothers invited them to an all-expenses-paid trip to the Hamptons over Labor Day weekend, Koval said, with a private chef, boat trips and more. She and her friend were promised a private bedroom.

Koval, who had recovered from a major abdominal surgery about eight to nine months earlier, said she was looking forward to the trip. “I had just had surgery, I was recently single. I wanted to explore the Hamptons for the first time,” she said.

The brothers — Oren, Tal and Alon — “seemed genuinely happy for us to be there,” Koval said about their arrival at the Hamptons house, which appears to be the same home described in testimony delivered last week by a woman who says she was raped by Tal in 2014.

On the second day of the trip, the brothers told the women, including others, to wear swimsuits for a party later that day. But when other guests, including clients of the Alexanders, began arriving, Koval said they were dressed more formally than she expected, so she changed into a red jumpsuit. At some point, Oren came up to her and gave her a drink. She took a few sips, but avoided drinking more because of her surgery and subsequent Crohn’s disease diagnosis.

Koval then described feeling like a switch went off and not feeling like herself. She began to lose control of her body and struggled to make it inside the house, where she planned to go straight to her bedroom. “Never in my life” had she felt like that, she said. That’s when Alon saw her and pulled her into another bedroom, where she laid down.

“I closed my eyes and I was awoken to the door opening and Oren walking into the room. This is when I realized that I had lost the ability to move my legs and limbs,” she said. “My mind, I was fully awake and aware. I was able to speak, but it was very faint.”

She said that Oren pulled out a condom, got on top of her, pinned her down and raped her. “He had this brooding energy, almost like anger. He did not say a single word to me,” she said, adding that she woke up the next day in the same bedroom.

Koval said she and her friend felt trapped and had to stay the day after the alleged rape. “It felt like I was forced to be around the person who raped me.” They were able to leave the house without the Alexanders noticing the next day, thanks to a friend of a friend.

Prosecutors also questioned Koval on inconsistencies in the story she initially shared with them and her testimony, including what she was wearing at the time of the attack and whether she joined the Alexanders and others on a boat the following day.