This article is from: baltimoreravens.com
A prominent luxury real estate broker and his identical twin brother appeared in a Florida courtroom Thursday on sexual assault charges. Another brother, who co-founded the real estate firm, is also charged in what federal officials call a longtime sex trafficking scheme.
Oren and Alon Alexander, both 37, were ordered held without bond by Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer until a hearing Friday, where their attorney will attempt to free them on bail. State prosecutors contend both are flight risks and should stay in jail until trial.
“We’re making a bail proposal to the state. Hopefully the state is amenable to that,” said the brothers’ attorney, Joel Denaro, during the hearing in Miami. Oren and Alon Alexander appeared at the hearing via video wearing protective green vests, with their arms exposed.
The other brother, 38-year-old Tal Alexander, appeared Wednesday in a Miami federal courtroom on the federal sex trafficking indictment involving all three of them. Tal Alexander will have a bail hearing Friday, with prosecutors seeking pretrial detention and Denaro seeking bail in that venue as well.
None of them have entered a plea to the charges yet.
Oren and Tal Alexander co-founded the luxury real estate firm Official, which specializes in high-end properties in cities including New York, Miami, and Los Angeles with billionaire clients. In 2019, they helped Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin purchase a $238 million New York penthouse, setting a record for the highest-priced home ever sold in the U.S.
Federal prosecutors allege in the New York indictment that all three Alexander brothers worked together to “repeatedly and violently drug, sexually assault, and rape dozens of victims.”
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday at a news conference that the brothers used their wealth and influence to take advantage of victims during a period from at least 2010 to 2021. The Florida charges, meanwhile, involve specific incidents against known victims, according to prosecutors.
The brothers, who all reside in the Miami area, used “deception, fraud, and coercion” to entice victims to travel with them or attend parties or events in which they covered flights, hotels and other expenses, according to the New York indictment. They also at times used the promise of romantic relationships, officials said.
At Thursday’s hearing, Oren Alexander told the judge he had a special reason to seek release on bail: his wife is nine months pregnant and that “she’s counting on me to be with her” during labor.
“I’m required by law to hold you without bond,” Glazer replied, noting that Oren Alexander’s lawyer, Denaro, will have a chance to plead for release at another hearing.
“We don’t believe he’s a flight risk,” Denaro said.
U.S. prosecutors say the women who were victimized were often provided drugs, including cocaine, psychedelic mushrooms and GHB, and the brothers even surreptitiously drugged some of the women’s drinks, leaving them physically impaired and unable to fight back or escape from the sexual assaults.
In the Florida cases, state prosecutors described one incident in December 2016 as a “gang rape” of a woman who said she was invited to a barbecue at Alon Alexander’s Miami Beach apartment only to discover no one there but Alon and another man.
The second incident, in October 2017, involved a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander at his apartment following a real estate event. The woman said she was given a glass of wine that made her feel weak and unable to control her body before the attack, according to prosecutors.
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