Minors Among 40 Alleged Victims of Alexander Brothers

Two luxury real estate brokers and their brother, accused of sexually assaulting 40 women and girls over two decades, were denied bail Wednesday with a New York judge describing them as dangers to the community. Lawyers speaking on behalf of twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 37, and their brother, Tal, 38, argued they posed no threat and were not flight risks as they are married with young children, are not accused of crimes in the last four years, and had proposed a $115 million bail package that meant they'd "give up basically everything that they have" if they chose to flee, per CBS News. They also suggested accusers were making up stories in an attempt to profit financially, per the New York Times.

That didn't sway Manhattan federal court judge Valerie E. Caproni, who agreed with two federal magistrate judges in Florida, where the Miami residents are in custody, that the brothers should remain locked up. The alleged crimes are not the result of "a one-time party where things went wrong," said Caproni. Rather, the brothers are accused of raping and sexually assaulting dozens of women and girls over two decades from 2002 to 2021. Each brother has been accused of forcible rape by at least 10 victims, prosecutors say. "And there is a consistency in the detail about how they are lured into areas under the defendants' control, then drugged and assaulted," Caproni said, per the Times.

In denying bail, Caproni noted "the weight of the evidence is strong"—prosecutors say they have video evidence of the brothers engaging in sex acts with incapacitated women—and each brother faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison up to the maximum life in prison if convicted as charged. She said the brothers' suggestion of a form of home detention with private security guards that would keep them from fleeing—"to create, in essence, a private prison"—was impossible given a prior court decision laying out the "fundamental principle of fairness that the law protects the interests of rich and poor criminals in equal scale." The three men, awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, are expected to be moved to Manhattan next week, per the Times. (More sexual assault stories.)