Luxury real estate brokers the Alexander brothers have been arrested in connection with a sexual assault investigation in South Florida and New York, authorities said.
Luxury real estate brokers the Alexander brothers have been arrested in connection with a sexual assault investigation in South Florida and New York that allegedly involved dozens of victims who were violently raped dating back more than a decade, authorities said Wednesday.
Oren Alexander and his twin brother, Alon Alexander, both 37, were arrested following a joint investigation into sexual assault allegations occurring on Miami Beach, according to the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office.
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The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said their brother, Tal Alexander, was also arrested.
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In multiple civil lawsuits filed in New York this year, multiple women accused one or more of the brothers of alleged sexual assaults and batteries dating back over a decade.
Court records released Wednesday shows prosecutors believe the sex assaults and rapes may actually date back to over two decades ago, when the brothers were in high school in Miami.
An indictment from New York charges all three brothers with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking of victims by force, fraud or coercion.
Records showed Alon and Oren Alexander were booked into a Miami-Dade jail Wednesday on sexual battery charges.
The indictment accuses the brothers of drugging, sexually assaulting and raping dozens of victims dating back to around 2010 by using "their prominent positions in the real estate industry" to meet the women they targeted.
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"At times, the Alexander brothers arranged for these sexual assaults well in advance, using the promise of luxury experiences, travel, and accommodations to lure and entice women to locations where they were then forcibly raped or sexually assaulted, sometimes by multiple men, including one or more of the Alexander brothers," the indictment said. "Often, the Alexander brothers drugged their victims before assaulting them, preventing them from fighting back or escaping."
The indictment said the brothers and others they worked with obtained drugs including cocaine, mushrooms and GHB, and on multiple occasions secretly drugged women's drinks.
Isabelle Kirshner, an attorney for Alon and Oren, confirmed to CNBC that the three men were arrested in South Florida. The twins have previously denied wrongdoing in the accusations.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Alon and Oren Alexander were arrested at their Miami Beach homes.
The Alexander brothers' cousin, Ohad Fisherman, is also facing charges in the investigation but remains at large, Fernandez Rundle said.
Fernandez Rundle said the Miami-Dade charges derive from three separate incidents involving three different victims.
The first incident happened Dec. 31, 2016 and allegedly involved the twins and Fisherman in what Fernandez Rundle described as a "gang rape."
In that case, the victim said she'd been in New York when she met Alon, who invited her to a barbecue at his apartment on Collins Avenue.
Once she arrived, they realized there was no barbecue and that the twins and Fisherman were the only people there, Fernandez Rundle said.
The victim said the brothers argued over who was going to rape her first as she was held down by Fisherman and raped by the twins, Fernandez Rundle said.
Afterwards, she was forced to have sex with Fisherman, then told to take a shower and not tell anyone about what happened as she was allowed to leave, Fernandez Rundle said.
The second alleged incident happened Oct. 20, 2017 and only involved Oren Alexander, Fernandez Rundle said.
The victim said she went with Oren to a real estate event, and was invited back to his apartment to try on virtual reality goggles, Fernandez Rundle said.
He gave her a glass of wine and started to remove her clothes, as she told him to stop.
The victim said she was no longer in control of her body and wound up on bed where she couldn't move or speak and didn't have the strength to push Oren off her as he raped her, Fernandez Rundle said.
The third alleged incident happened Oct. 26, 2021 and also only involved Oren Alexander, Fernandez Rundle said.
In that incident, the alleged victim said she met Oren at a dinner party and went back with him to a home where he started to kiss her, Fernandez Rundle said.
He became aggressive and ripped the top of her dress off but she got away and made her way downstairs but found the door was on a remote lock, Fernandez Rundle said.
She went back to his room to get him to open door, but he sexually assaulted her, Fernandez Rundle said.
"When men with a certain position and wealth are accused of sexual crimes, some may be shocked or astonished as to why a person with so much, so many assets, could have anything they wanted, would need to resort to committing a sexual assault," Fernandez Rundle said.
Meanwhile, Tal Alexander appeared in federal court in South Florida Wednesday afternoon in the New York sex trafficking investigation, where prosecutors sought to have him held based on being a flight risk and danger to community.
The judge scheduled a detention and removal hearing for Friday afternoon.
The New York indictment said Tal Alexander is about a year older than the twins. It also said Alon Alexander has been an executive of a private security firm owned and operated by his family since around 2012.
Oren and Tal Alexander are the founders of Official, a luxury real estate firm with offices in Miami and New York and that also operates in the Hamptons and Aspen.
Court records showed the Alexanders brokered a nearly $240 million sale of a penthouse in 2019, which at the time was the most expensive residential sale in U.S. history.
That same year, they brokered the sale of a $50 million property on Indian Creek Island, known as "Billionaire Bunker," then a record for the most expensive home sold in Miami-Dade.
The island is home to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who last year reportedly bought a $79 million mansion just two months after buying a neighboring estate for $68 million, as well as other A-list celebrities like NFL legend Tom Brady, singer Julio Iglesias, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Fernandez Rundle said she's hopeful there aren't other victims in Miami-Dade but is urging any possible victims to come forward.
This is a breaking news story. Refresh for updates.
