NEW YORK (AP) — The wealthy Alexander brothers used the same tactics of luring, drugging and humiliation to sexually assault numerous women and girls, bragging about their exploits in blog posts with titles that included “It’s not rape if,” a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
In a closing argument after four weeks of testimony in the siblings’ federal sex trafficking trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Jones reviewed the often harrowing accounts of 11 women who allege they were sexually assaulted by Alon, Oren or Tal Alexander.
The allegations are corroborated by the “sheer number of victims who testified,” the prosecutor said — women who never have met each other and live different lives, but “have one horrific thing in common: they were raped by these men.”
Far from hiding their activity, the brothers bragged about it in text messages, emailed about sneaking drugs — or “party favors” — onto a cruise ship, recorded at least one assault on video and shared photos of victims, Jones said, calling it “devastating evidence” supporting the charges against them.
“You know this playbook because the defendants did this multiple times,” Jones said, chronicling alleged assaults at Hamptons mansions; New York City apartments; an Aspen, Colorado, ski trip; and a Caribbean cruise. One woman testified that Alon Alexander raped her in 2012, hours after they had met at actor Zac Efron’s Manhattan apartment. Efron was not accused of any wrongdoing.
Oren and Tal Alexander, high-end real estate brokers dubbed “The A Team,” and their brother Alon, an executive at their family’s private security firm, have pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and other charges.
In a closing argument, a lawyer for Alon Alexander said prosecutors conflated the brothers’ “obnoxious” and admittedly inappropriate banter with grave criminal allegations. Alon “should be and is embarrassed” by the language he used — but “talk doesn’t constitute a crime,” defense lawyer Howard Srebnick argued.
The defense’s closing arguments will continue on Wednesday.
The brothers are accused of meeting victims at nightclubs, parties and on dating apps, and recruited others for trips to ritzy locales, paying for flights and lodging at high-end hotels or luxe vacation rentals before drugging and raping them. After witnessing an assault at a Hamptons mansion, one woman pulled out her eyeliner and wrote “RAPIST” on a bedroom door, Jones said.
“A lot of the evidence at this long trial was hard to see and hear,” Jones said. “A lot of it was brutal. That’s because the defendant’s crimes were brutal.”
Jones reminded jurors of a video, played during the trial, of Oren Alexander appearing to rape a drugged 17-year-old in 2009 at the Manhattan apartment he shared with his brothers. Oren recorded the video with his laptop computer — and could be seen adjusting the angle before the alleged assault, Jones said.
“You can see the playbook in action here,” Jones said. “When you saw him pick up her limp legs and climb on top of her lifeless body, you knew what you were seeing.”
On another occasion, Jones said, two of the brothers and two other men raped a 16-year-old boarding school student who had skipped her prom to join them in the Hamptons. A photo of the girl, sleeping topless, was found on one of the brothers’ laptop hard drives, he said.
Now in her 30s, she testified that the assault only ended when she kicked one of the men away. Afterward, she said, Tal Alexander told her: “Don’t be mad at me.”
Another woman, a United Nations intern invited to the Hamptons mansion that weekend, testified that she saw the brothers dragging someone to a hot tub and assaulting her. The victim pleaded with them to stop and they didn’t, Jones said, recounting the intern’s testimony.
“I work for the U.N. and I know what you’re doing to girls in there,” the intern screamed before scrawling the “RAPIST” message, Jones said.
The prosecutor urged jurors to reject defense claims that prosecutors were criminalizing “hookup culture” and that accusers were motivated by shame or by money.
“Now that you’ve seen these women for yourselves, you know how wrong that is,” Jones said, noting that one witness was the daughter of a billionaire. “There’s not been an ounce of shame in this courtroom.”
“What walked into this courtroom was not shame,” Jones added. “It was courage and resolve. It was the truth.”