Three brothers – two of them wealthy real-estate moguls – were sentenced to 30 years each in prison for drugging and raping dozens of women over decades.
Tal Alexander, 40, and twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 39, were found guilty in March of using their wealth and social status to lure women to parties and luxury homes, where they sexually assaulted them.
“Your conduct was monstrous,” said Judge Valerie Caproni before sentencing them. “Your crimes wreaked havoc on their lives.”
On Tuesday morning, the court in New York heard from 12 victims, including one who did not testify during the trial.
One by one, they spoke of the psychological trauma they endured after the Alexander brothers raped them, and their desire for the shame they had felt to instead fall on the defendants.
Many asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence of life in prison for each brother.
Maya Miller told the court that after Tal Alexander raped her in 2014, she lost all sense of safety. “I carry a quiet funeral within me for the person I might’ve become if this never happened to me,” she said.
Another victim, using the pseudonym Isa Brooks, said that after being raped by Tal and Alon Alexander when she was 16, she lost the ability to trust herself.
“I had no idea the danger I was in till it was too late,” she said.
Another woman said that when she planned to come forward about being raped, Tal Alexander threatened her, saying he knew where her sister worked.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Espinosa said the brothers deserved the maximum punishment for their crimes, saying facts “paint a truly devastating picture”.
“For years, they honed their methods of luring women with the promise of luxury,” she said, adding that they were “completely unmoved by the path of suffering they left behind them.”
During the women’s speeches, the three Alexander brothers showed little emotion. They stared ahead or conferred with their lawyers, who said they advised their clients not to look at the victims so the court couldn’t misinterpret it.
Attorneys for the brothers pushed for sentences of 15 years, arguing that they had become devoted fathers whose families would suffer in their absence.
The three men all addressed the court, continuing to profess their innocence.
“We had a work-hard, play-hard mentality,” Tal Alexander said, adding he saw how his behavior “hurt people’s feelings”.
But their statements did not assuage Caproni, who chastised them for refusing to admit their crimes.
“How can someone who never acknowledged the wrongs they did be rehabilitated?” she asked.
At the end of the hearing, she sentenced them each to 30 years in prison for certain crimes. She also sentenced each to 20 years in prison for additional crimes, but said the men would serve the sentences concurrently.
During the five-week trial, 11 women – several said they were minors at the time of the assaults – testified that the brothers gave them gifts and flew them places including Aspen and the Bahamas where they fed them drugs before raping them.
Prosecutors said the brothers’ pattern of abusive behaviour began in high school, though the trial involved crimes starting in 2008.
They said the three slipped drugs into women’s drinks, and “physically restrained and held down their victims during the rapes and sexual assaults and ignored screams and explicit requests to stop”.
Lawyers for the brothers argued the sex was consensual and that they were womanisers, but not abusers.
Two of the brothers, Tal and Oren, became wealthy selling luxury properties in New York and Miami.
They worked for American real estate giant Douglas Elliman, with clients including Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. In 2022, they founded their own New York-based firm called Official. Alon worked at the family’s private security firm, Kent Security.
As they heard their sentences, the brothers stared straight ahead.