{"id":643501,"date":"2026-10-28T05:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/643501\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T05:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T05:44:17","slug":"wealthy-us-brothers-sentenced-to-30-years-each-on-rape-sex-trafficking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/643501\/","title":{"rendered":"Wealthy US brothers sentenced to 30 years each on rape, sex trafficking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three brothers convicted of leveraging their wealthy lifestyle to drug and rape dozens of women were each sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison after one victim described her attack as an “eternity of terror” and the judge slammed their behaviour as shameful, degenerate and monstrous.<\/p>\n

Warning: This article discusses sexual violence and rape. Helplines are available. <\/p>\n

Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander \u2014 known collectively as the Alexander Brothers \u2014 stared blankly as US District Judge Valerie E. Caproni announced their punishment, which was less than the life sentences that federal prosecutors sought. Some of the 11 women who spoke during the hearing wept in the Manhattan courtroom gallery.<\/p>\n

\"Where<\/p>\n

Where to get help for sexual violence. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

“Your conduct was monstrous,” Caproni told the men, equating them to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as she reconciled their March sex trafficking conviction with their claims that being fathers and husbands has changed them from the partying, womanising ways of their youth.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard for me to believe the defendants changed their spots just like that,” the judge said. She added, “it strains credulity that marriage would change them from sexual predators to model gentlemen”. <\/p>\n

Many of the women in the packed courtroom appeared disappointed with the sentences, which will spring the Alexanders from prison around the age most Americans are settling into retirement.<\/p>\n

The brothers, jailed without bail since their 2024 arrests, must also each pay at least US$300,000 (NZ$528,052) in fines. Oren Alexander was ordered to pay another US$50,000 (NZ$88,018) for producing child sexual abuse material by recording a video that prosecutors said showed him raping a 17-year-old girl.<\/p>\n

While the brothers \u2014 twins Oren and Alon, 39, and Tal Alexander, 40 \u2014 expressed regret for how they treated and regarded women, they all denied drugging and raping anyone.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This photo provided by the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department shows Alon Alexander, left, and Oren Alexander, both of whom have been charged with sex trafficking. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

“That’s entirely a lie and you all know it,” Caproni told them, adding that she hoped they someday feel “deeply ashamed of themselves”. <\/p>\n

For some of the women who spoke in court, no length of time will repair the damage they said was done to them. Choking up, they described how the assaults stole their innocence and left them haunted by nightmares and fearing men.<\/p>\n

“It took one night, only a few hours, one invitation to completely wreck the girl I once was,” one woman, using a pseudonym to protect her identity, said as she stood at a lectern just feet from the brothers.<\/p>\n

\"Lexi<\/p>\n

Lexi Zettle speaks to the media after sentencing proceedings concluded for Alon Alexander, Oren Alexander, and Tal Alexander outside Manhattan federal court. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The brothers speak for themselves<\/p>\n

None of the brothers testified at their trial, but each spoke before they were sentenced.<\/p>\n

Oren Alexander said he and his brothers came of age at the height of hook-up culture and Howard Stern’s hypersexualised radio show. Looking back as a father, he said he regrets many of the things he said about women at that time. However, he insisted that they never broke the law.<\/p>\n

“My brothers and I have never drugged or raped anyone. We never trafficked anyone for sex and we never conspired to hurt anyone,” Oren Alexander said, reading from prepared remarks.<\/p>\n

Choking up, Tal Alexander asked Caproni to “understand how difficult it is to stand here” and express “genuine regret about something I did not do”.<\/p>\n

“Over the last two years I’ve lost everything I loved, everything I worked for,” Tal Alexander said. “I feel like an atomic bomb has been dropped on my life and destroyed everything in its wake.”<\/p>\n

Alon Alexander said he too has evolved and acknowledged that having a wife and daughter does not excuse messages he wrote that degraded women or times when he bragged to others about sex.<\/p>\n

“The party life you heard about and saw in the courtroom ended long before the FBI came knocking,” Alon Alexander said. “Six years before my arrest, I was building a different life.”<\/p>\n

\"Oren<\/p>\n

Oren and Tal Alexander speak at a panel at the Rockstars of Real Estate Event in New York., on Sept. 3, 2013. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

All three brothers stressed their Jewish faith. Oren Alexander, wearing a yarmulke, said that even with the minimum 15-year sentence the defence sought, he’d miss his son’s bar mitzvah.<\/p>\n

They asked Caproni to assign them to the same prison. Tal Alexander said doing so would ease the burden on their parents, both age 70, who hope to visit them every weekend.<\/p>\n

The judge said she’ll leave that decision to the federal Bureau of Prisons. She agreed to recommend that they be locked up near Miami, where they grew up and have relatives, but suggested that if it were up to her, they’d be sent to different lockups.<\/p>\n

“I believe that they are and will continue to be bad influences on each other,” Caproni said.<\/p>\n

Victims describe a lasting dread<\/p>\n

The accusers who spoke in court \u2014 and another whose statement was read by a prosecutor \u2014 were among at least 70 women who prosecutors say were assaulted by one or more of the brothers over the last two decades in posh locales including the Hamptons and Aspen, Colorado.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Acree, an artist and gallery owner, testified that she was raped by Tal Alexander and another man at a Hamptons home in 2011 after taking a drink that she said left her feeling paralyzed. Scrapping her prepared remarks, she told Caproni that a life sentence wouldn’t begin to do justice for the women whose lives were irreparably harmed.<\/p>\n

“This has wasted my damn time. It’s wasted your time. It’s wasted everyone in this room’s time,” Acree told the judge. Turning to the brothers, she said: “For why? For you. Because you did some really messed up stuff.”<\/p>\n

“The biggest thing is why? Why did you do this?” Acree asked. “I don’t understand the cruelty. I don’t understand the hatred toward women.”<\/p>\n

Another woman who testified that Tal Alexander raped her in August 2014 said she carried “a quiet funeral in me for the person I might have become had this not happened to me”.<\/p>\n

“Every second that Tal raped me in that shower felt like an eternity of terror,” said the woman, who used a pseudonym.<\/p>\n

Another woman speaking about her rape in the Hamptons said: “What looked like a beautiful place became for me a mansion of horror, a mansion of dark secrets.”<\/p>\n

Stars of the New York real estate scene<\/p>\n

Oren and Tal Alexander were once nicknamed real estate\u2019s “A Team” for their ultra high-end sales and celebrity clientele. After smashing sales records at industry powerhouse Douglas Elliman, they started their own firm. Alon Alexander ran their family\u2019s private security company.<\/p>\n

The brothers projected an exclusive lifestyle of yachts, private jets and waterfront mansions in Miami, but prosecutors said they began sexually assaulting women as early as 2001 or 2002, when they were in high school, and over time developed a pattern of drugging and raping women who they enticed to join them on luxury getaways.<\/p>\n

In remarks before the sentence was announced, Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa told the judge that the brothers’ “callousness, carelessness, cruelty” warranted a life prison term, especially since all their victims would be serving life sentences of pain.<\/p>\n

“Women overcame all the forces telling them this was their fault, they should stay quiet, that no one would believe them,” Espinosa said. “Despite that pain, so many came forward and 11 women testified at trial.”<\/p>\n

Addressing Caproni, Lexi Zettle said Tal Alexander was once “a prince in my eyes” who said “you’re my girl” and dangled “fairytale” romance before her until he started pressuring her to sleep with men he did business with.<\/p>\n

“They treated me like a rag doll, like I was this disposable thing,” Zettle said. The Alexander brothers, she said, “are not the A Team and they are not above the law”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three brothers convicted of leveraging their wealthy lifestyle to drug and rape dozens of women were each sentenced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,2248],"class_list":["post-643501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}