The Alexander Brothers' fall seemed inevitable

While the brothers seem like a great cabinet pick for the Trump administration in this era, karma is still a thing I suppose

Hello, readers!

In August, a reporter from Business Insider called me out of the blue. I had previously brought him a story about the alleged drugging of a woman at a commercial real estate firm. He unfortunately wasn’t able to take that story on, because there was no smoking gun and only one source. He did suspect this was a pattern in the real estate world, however.

He was right. The story he called me about was a bit easier to report on, as there were many sources alleging that multimillionaire three princes of real estate—Alon, Oren, and Tal—had drugged and raped them. This had apparently started as far back as high school, where Oren’s yearbook quote about his fondest high school memory was “Riding my first ‘choo-choo’ train.”

I hadn’t heard from any women about the Alexander Brothers at that point, but journalists seemed well-sourced enough. What started as a reporter at The Real Deal scanning public docket data turned into a subsequent news story about two women’s civil lawsuits alleging assault, a post about the lawsuits on The Real Deal’s Instagram, and a media firestorm where dozens of women were commenting on social media and coming forward with twisted stories about the brothers drugging them, and taking turns raping them.

Stories in the New York Times and the New York Magazine, among others, followed. According to New York Magazine, the ethos may have started with the Alexander parents, who ran a security firm called Kent:

The family ran the place aggressively. Kent picked fights with competitors and clients, sparred with employees over wages, and fended off lawsuits brought by former employees who accused the company of discrimination. “Success is all that matters to them. Step on anybody you have to step on. Screw them before they screw you,” says a former Kent employee, one of more than 70 people interviewed for this story who know the Alexander family or have worked with the brothers professionally.

The Alexander brothers were the richest boys at their public high school, and had reputations as bullies. One former classmate told New York Magazine: “If you had anything less than the lifestyle that they did, they took pleasure in making those people feel inadequate or belittled.” Girls were told to avoid parties with the brothers, and to watch their drinks if they did go to those parties. In 2003, Alon and Oren were interviewed by police after a 14-year-old freshman was allegedly gang-raped by a group of boys who called it “running a train.”

Nothing seemed to ever happen to them though, they seemed immune to accountability. Oren found an invaluable connection to Howard Lorber, the chairman of Douglas Elliman, after Elliman toured the house that Oren’s father Shlomy was developing. He parlayed that into a job at Elliman, and that launched a fruitful real estate career. The brothers brought each other into multi-million dollar real estate commissions and called themselves the “A-team.”

Many of their clients were divorced bachelors looking for a good time, so the brothers were often flanked by young, attractive women to appease their clientele. As it turns out, many of those young, attractive women were not having such a good time themselves—or what they could remember of it.

Let’s just say that today, the Miami Herald reported:

An FBI agent took the witness stand at the federal detention hearing of Tal Alexander — one of three wealthy Miami Beach brothers charged with sex-trafficking — and testified that since June she has interviewed 40 women from New York and elsewhere who alleged they were raped by one of them. Special Agent Justine Atwood testified on Friday that all of the women’s allegations were “credible,” and that the victims did not know one another, came from different places and were sexually assaulted at various times over the past 20 years.

But around the time that these big news stories dropped last summer, I told my boyfriend about the story. He had met the Alexanders before in a business context (and reiterated that they were not so lovely to engage with, even to him). He asked me whether any of these news stories would ultimately matter to the brothers. Couldn’t they just take all their money and pay lawyers to fend off the civil suits?

At the time, I thought that maybe they could just abscond to the South of France or pay their legal fees from their Bal Harbour homes—and find enough red-pilled people with money and real estate needs who thought “the women asked for it.” Plus, our current system already is rigged in favor of nepotism, tribalism, and something that is increasingly resembling a monarchy. So it seemed plausible that they could at least attempt to drown some of this out.

But then the ripples of those stories started reverberating into something far more disruptive—and water started spilling over.

The brothers’ former boss Howard Lorber stepped down from Douglas Elliman, facing allegations that he mismanaged the sexual assault reports. And for Damian Williams (the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York) and other law enforcement in New York and Miami, the conduct of Oren, Alon, and Tal definitely did matter.

Fast forward to today. The brothers all got married in the last few years, with kids on the way—presumably a clean-up of their act. (Side-note, Tal’s father-in-law Steve Kogut, another real estate magnate, was accused of “dragging his girlfriend by the nipples” in a 2015 lawsuit.)

But their past repetitive hedonism was something that money could not completely insulate them from.

The sheer number of women with the same types of stories over the years—combined with a schadenfreude from the public in seeing these “boys will be boys” shot down in the press—led to something the brothers and their family could simply not run away from or bully their way out of.

And so last week, the brothers were formally charged with sex trafficking, and denied bond should they use any potential offshore resources. From the press release:

From at least in or about 2010, up to and including at least in or about 2021, the ALEXANDER BROTHERS worked together and with others to engage in sex trafficking, including by repeatedly drugging, sexually assaulting, and raping dozens of female victims. The ALEXANDER BROTHERS, who reside primarily in New York and Miami, Florida, have considerable social and financial connections, including through OREN ALEXANDER and TAL ALEXANDER’s positions as prominent real estate agents focused on ultra-luxury markets. The ALEXANDER BROTHERS used their wealth and prominent positions in real estate to create and facilitate opportunities to sexually assault women.

To carry out and facilitate their sex trafficking scheme, the ALEXANDER BROTHERS used deception, fraud, and coercion to cause victims to travel with them or meet them in private locations for various trips and events. The ALEXANDER BROTHERS and others identified women to invite to these events through, among other things, social media, dating applications, in person encounters, or through the use of party promoters who would recruit women for these events.

We still don’t know what will happen. These guys could walk free on trial—so a lot of the case will hinge on the testimonies that the government is able to bring forward.

But I sometimes think of the universe’s pendulum swing—that what you put out there will boomerang back to you in some shape or form. It might not look like closure tied with a bow, and someone might leave a good amount of carnage in their path before the reality slaps them in the face.

It will, though, come back to meet you in some way. The truth always does. And right now they’ve ridden the A-train to a sort of condo they never before dreamed of: a jail cell.

Some other things I’m reading…

They say the third time’s the charm–and with my third marriage, it was. — An endearing love story out of a military assignment in Cape Cod.

TikTok Asks Supreme Court to Block Law Banning Its U.S. Operations — The unfortunate ban is looking more and more likely to happen, unless the Supreme Court chooses free speech over “national security.” (Note: the lawmaker who drafted the TikTok ban bill is now a handsomely paid lobbyist for defense contractor Palantir, which is strategically pro-Israel and has been against any uncensored TikTok content for a while now. So it’s not really about national security, so much as it is about defense contracts and this guy’s salary.)

SoftBank CEO and Trump announce $100 billion investment in U.S. by firm — This was the “king-maker” fund that poured money into WeWork and a lot of other tech startups back in 2016-2018. Curious to see what other “visionary” kings they dredge up ;)

Thanks to everyone here for your support. Some of this stuff is dark, so next newsletter will include things I’m enjoying watching and splurging in, as well.

xx,

Ari