Claims of rape by Florida real estate brothers put Miami in the spotlight

As claims of rape and sexual assault against the Alexander brothers continue to swell, so do the connections to South Florida.

Of the 11 women who filed civil lawsuits in New York state court earlier this week accusing two of the three brothers of rape and sexual assault, four of them said the incidents happened in Miami. All say they were drugged without consent. Two claim to have met one of the brothers at a restaurant or nightclub before going home with him. Another met on a dating app. One of the women claims to have been raped in a hotel room.

Twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 37, and their 38-year-old brother Tal made headlines last summer when several women filed civil lawsuits in New York state court that claimed the trio used their wealth and connections to lure them into uncomfortable situations, then raped and sexually assaulted them after plying them with drugs.

In December, the trio were arrested at their Miami Beach homes, charged with a slew of state and federal rape and sex-trafficking charges. They’re currently jailed in New York. Oren and Tal were stars in the high-end luxury real estate world, where they took part in some of the largest residential sales in the country. Alon was an executive at the family’s Kent Security business.

The brothers’ attorneys, Joel Denaro and Edward O’Donnell IV, denied the claims in the lawsuits filed this week, saying any intimate relations that might have occurred “were consensual.” The attorneys said personal injury attorneys have run a sophisticated “covert” social media campaign soliciting women “who knew or partied with the Alexanders,” to file lawsuits.

“We now know why and how these girls came from nowhere simultaneously to PI [personal injury] attorneys and never to law enforcement,” they said in a prepared statement.

Law firms and legal aid groups have placed ads on Instagram and other social media sites asking possible victims of the Alexander brothers to come forward. It’s now a fairly common practice in large high-profile sex crime and other cases. That’s how Andrew Van Arsdale of the San Diego-based AVA Law Group — which filed Tuesday’s lawsuits — attracted clients.

Van Arsdale said the women who filed the most recent 11 lawsuits were vetted from over 100 who contacted his firm. And as the statute of limitations nears for New York cases, he said to expect more cases to be filed. The cut-off date for claims in New York is Feb. 28.

“We’ve had inquiries coming in for a couple of months now. We try to corroborate. We’ve got to factually be able to believe and to prove that these happened,” he said.

Van Arsdale also said his office has been in touch with New York prosecutors and that he would urge any of his clients to testify at any criminal trial involving the Alexander brothers. He also said attorneys have been unable to recover any police reports involving the women who have come forward, despite claims that some of them approached law enforcement.

In Brooklyn jail awaiting trial

The brothers are awaiting criminal trial in a Brooklyn federal jail. Family members — who have amassed a fortune over the years in real estate and through their security firm — pledged tens of millions of dollars in assets for bond, but judges in Miami and New York have denied the requests.

In several of the criminal cases, investigators say, the Alexander brothers transported women across state lines, even to foreign countries. And often, according to court records, women were drugged before being raped.

Only Oren and Tal were named in the 11 new civil lawsuits. But federal investigators say since the December arrests, an additional 60 women have come forward with credible accusations and new criminal charges could be added.

Tuesday’s filings bring the total number of cases accusing the brothers of sexual assault in civil court filings in New York and Miami to 17. The most recent 11 lawsuits say the acts took place between 2011 and 2018 in New York, Moscow and Miami. The growing list of lawsuits also includes one that was filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in January.

Incident at Oren’s Miami Beach home, new suit says

A woman whose initials are E.S. filed the Miami-Dade suit. She says Tal sexually assaulted her at Oren’s Flamingo Drive home in Miami Beach after a dinner party in January 2021. The woman, who said she was visiting from New York, said that after dinner Tal followed her around the property insisting on giving her a tour of the 10,271-square foot, eight bedroom, 10-bathroom home.

When she finally agreed to the tour, E.S. said Tal pinned her down in a guest room and tried to sexually assault her. She says she was able to escape after telling Tal she was having her period and he leaned over to take a look. E.S. has requested a jury trial.

Tal’s attorney DeAnna Paul said her client is an easy target for accusers looking to “fabricate stories” for financial gain.

“A federal court has already dismissed claims under this statute as time barred. This transparent attempt at a cash grab will fail and we expect these frivolous lawsuits filed days before the law is set to expire, will also be dismissed,” Paul said in a statement.

Paul was referring to a lawsuit filed by Angelica Parker last year that said Tal and Alon Alexander raped her in a Manhattan apartment in 2012 as their brother Oren watched. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York tossed the complaint last month saying the rape would have had to have happened after 2017 to meet the statute of limitations and for the civil case to continue.

Arrests make international headlines

The Alexander brothers’ arrests in December made international headlines. Oren and Tal were high-flying luxury real estate moguls who often appeared in the New York tabloids and who took credit for some of the largest residential real estate deals in the country, from Manhattan to Miami. Alon was an executive at Kent Security, a firm founded by the family more than three decades ago.

A friend of the brothers also got caught up in sex crime busts. Ohad Fisherman, 39, had to cut his honeymoon in Japan short and return to Miami to face a single count of sexual battery by multiple perpetrators. Fisherman’s arrest report says that on New Year’s Eve 2016 he used his knees to pin a woman down on a bed as Oren and Alon raped her. Fisherman was able to bond out of jail.

Not long after being charged in the three Miami Beach rape cases in state court, federal agents took custody of the brothers and transported them to the same federal jail in Brooklyn where rap star Diddy is awaiting trial on similar charges. If convicted, the Alexander brothers could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

The most recently filed civil lawsuits were first reported by the New York Times.

Miami at center of rape claims

The first of the four accusations in the Miami cases is said to have occurred in 2011, when a woman identified as Jane Doe said she met the brothers while out partying with friends and agreed to go back to their hotel suite, where they first smoked a joint.

The woman said they went upstairs and after having a drink from the mini bar she rapidly lost consciousness. She says in the complaint that she recalls being forcibly held down while Tal and Oren took turns raping her. She claims to have awakened alone in the hotel room the next morning, all her belongings missing.

Another complaint accuses Oren Alexander of raping a woman he met on a dating app after picking her up at a hotel in 2015. The woman, who also refers to herself as Jane Doe, said she and Oren went to a Miami speakeasy with a Mexican theme and ordered some margaritas. Minutes later, she became “disoriented, dizzy, and weak.”

In the lawsuit, the woman says they went back to Oren’s apartment where she saw a man watching what appeared to be a topless teenager running around. The woman said she was taken into Oren’s bedroom where he raped her several times during the night and again the next morning.

A third civil suit with a Miami connection says a woman also named Jane Doe met the three brothers at a Miami nightclub In 2017 and agreed to go back to their home. After having a drink, she blacked out. But she said she felt “groping” above and below her clothing and that she woke up “intermittently” and realized she was being raped.

The most recent Miami rape claim in the new batch of civil lawsuits came from a woman named Leah Peters who said that on March 28, 2018, she agreed to go to a house party at a “luxurious” house with friends. The lawsuit didn’t say who the home belonged to. But it did say that she agreed to let Oren Alexander give her a tour of the home and that he led her to a bedroom, where he said he had extra swimwear.

Once in the bedroom, Peters said Oren removed her clothes against her will and raped her, the suit says. She said Oren then forced her to shower with him and then escorted her back to the party “as though nothing had happened.”