MIAMI — Oren Alexander — one of three wealthy Alexander brothers charged with forcing dozens of women to have sex with them in Miami Beach and New York City — was supposed to show up in Miami federal court on Tuesday for a bail hearing.
But he was a no-show.
And it wasn’t Oren’s fault.
The US Marshals Service accidentally flew Oren to New York City, where he’s been charged with his twin brother, Alon, and older brother, Tal. Perhaps it was a clerical error or the Marshals deputies mixed him up with Alon, who looks just like him.
Edwin Torres, the chief judge of the magistrate court in Miami, acknowledged there was a “miscommunication of orders” with the Marshals in New York, saying Oren had been accidentally “shipped to New York” and could “not make” his own bail hearing before him.
Torres ordered the Marshals to bring Oren back to Miami for his bond hearing on Wednesday, because the defendant can’t be legally transferred to New York without a removal order from the judge.
“We apologize for the confusion,” Torres said.
Oren’s defense attorney, Richard Klugh, declined to comment on the snafu, which practically never happens in federal court. He wasn’t even present for his client’s hearing on Tuesday.
All three Alexander brothers were arrested last month in Miami Beach on charges of luring women to swank locales in New York City, the Hamptons, Aspen and Miami Beach by paying for their travel and then plying them with drug-laced drinks before allegedly raping them.
According to the FBI and federal prosecutors, 42 women have accused at least one of the three brothers of sexual assault in the sex-trafficking conspiracy, which was filed in Manhattan federal court.
All three brothers are expected to enter not guilty pleas at their eventual arraignments in New York City — but the bigger challenge is freeing them from federal detention before trial.
So far, two federal magistrate judges in Miami rejected bail proposals for Alon and Tal Alexander and issued removal orders to New York, which are on hold for now. Meanwhile, Alon’s twin brother, Oren, was scheduled for his initial bond hearing on Tuesday afternoon before he was mistakenly whisked away by the Marshals.
If all this isn’t confusing enough, defense lawyers for Oren may ask Torres to cancel the actual bond hearing on Wednesday. Instead, after two bond defeats in Miami federal court, they’ve proposed that Oren and his two brothers combine all three of their bail proposals before U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni at a detention hearing later this month in Manhattan federal court.
On Tuesday, Judge Caproni said she wants to hold the three bail hearings for the brothers on Jan. 15, adding that if they haven’t been transferred to federal custody in New York by then, they won’t have to appear in person.
But Caproni denied the defense lawyers’ request to extend the stay beyond the Jan. 6 and Jan. 7 removal-order dates to New York for Tal and Alon Alexander, noting they have had ample time to consult on bail proposals with their lawyers in Miami.
If Torres, in Miami, orders Oren’s removal to New York on Wednesday, then he would be in the same predicament as his brothers.
“The intention is to coordinate all of the bond hearings up there in court,” Oren’s lawyer, Klugh, told the Miami Herald. “She has control over the bonds.”
This approach was worked out, Klugh said, after Magistrate Judge Eduardo Sanchez on Friday rejected the defense bid to free Alon. Sanchez said it was not because he necessarily posed a danger to the community but because of the risk he might try to leave the country for Israel, where the family has many connections.
“These are extremely serious charges that carry extremely serious penalties,” Sanchez said, citing the FBI’s investigation indicating 42 women have accused the three brothers of rape and that each defendant potentially faces up to life in prison.
But Sanchez, who cited the strength of the government’s evidence, said his denial of bond for Alon “has been a tough decision — it is close.”
Twin brother Oren’s detention hearing was then postponed until Tuesday because his attorney, Klugh, recently underwent eye surgery and needed more time to prepare for it. The outcome of that hearing, if it goes forward, is likely to be a sequel to Alon’s.
Another magistrate judge, Lisette Reid, denied a $115 million bond request in December by the third brother, Tal Alexander, 38, who is charged with the twins in the conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and related rape charges between 2010 and 2021 in New York, Miami Beach and other places.
The defense
All three Alexander brothers were arrested on an indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan federal court. The twin brothers were also charged with sexual battery by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. They were granted bonds by a state circuit judge and then transferred to federal custody.
Lawyers for the 37-year-old twins, who along with the third brother have made a fortune in the real estate business, proposed that they stay with their parents in Bal Harbour or in high-rise apartments in the Miami area with private security around the clock.
Attorney Howard Srebnick, who represents Alon, argued that his parents, Orly and Shlomo Alexander, were willing to take the risk of pledging all their assets to secure a bond for him because they know he’s not going to flee and leave them destitute. The parents and wives of the twin brothers, along with other relatives and family friends, attended Friday’s detention hearing.
“They know Alon is not going anywhere,” Srebnick said, adding that he’s “presumed innocent” and should not have to be held in a “horrific” federal detention center in New York City when his family has provided a reasonable alternative of home confinement.
Srebnick said he planned to appeal Sanchez’s ruling, possibly to the federal district court judge in Manhattan who is overseeing the Alexander brothers’ criminal case.
Outside the Miami federal courthouse Friday, Srebnick told reporters that he believed “every one” of the women accusing the Alexander brothers of rape were lying, noting that “none of them” had gone to the FBI or police before the investigation was opened last year.
However, records show that North Miami Beach police did investigate a rape complaint lodged by a teenage girl against the brothers in 2003 when they were attending Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in northeast Miami-Dade. No charges were filed.
The lawyer also said they were trying to “profiteer from any sexual activity they had many years ago” with the brothers by filing lawsuits.
Federal prosecutors said they strongly opposed any home confinement for Alon, arguing that he and his twin brother are a danger to the community and a risk of flight, possibly to Israel, where their parents are citizens and own a residence in Tel Aviv.
“The possibility of life in prison is devastating,” prosecutor Elizabeth Espinosa said in court. “That gives (Alon) every incentive in the world to flee.”
The defense prepared a document with all of the family’s assets for review by the judge and federal prosecutor, a record entered under seal from public scrutiny. The full extent of the family’s wealth isn’t known but a Miami Herald analysis of public records identified residential and commercial properties with an assessed market value of more than $74 million owned by members of the family or companies tied to them, though they still have outstanding mortgages on some of them.
The Alexanders had previously pledged $115 million in assets — using as collateral the parents’ Bal Harbour home, the Kent security office building in North Miami and Oren, Tal and Alon’s homes in Miami Beach — in an unsuccessful bid to have Tal Alexander released from federal custody as he awaits trial on sex trafficking charges.