Two Alexander brothers had sex with a protesting woman in the backyard of a Hamptons rental as other partygoers joined in or watched, according to testimony in the third week of the siblings’ Manhattan sex trafficking trial.
“She was over and over and over asking them to stop,” a witness told the jury of an unnamed woman she described as intoxicated and “screaming” for help in a hot tub.
It was Saturday night on Memorial Day weekend in 2009. Tal Alexander and “one of the twins” — the witness couldn’t say if it was Alon or Oren Alexander — were among those sexually assaulting the woman, according to the testimony.
“It seemed nobody was taking action,” said the witness, Avishan Bodjnoud, an information management executive at the United Nations.
Bodjnoud said she asked the people around her to do something, but no one would. In the midst of a party, “there were no allies there to help,” Bodjnoud said.
She felt too fearful and too alone in her outrage to contact the police, Bodjnoud told the jury.
Instead, she fled the party in a taxi, but not before scrawling “Rapists” and “You need to apologize” in eyeliner on the front door and wall of the Southampton rental, Bodjnoud testified.
Photographs of the graffiti, recovered from Tal Alexander’s hard drive, were shown in court. “I hoped that someday this could be used as evidence,” Bodjnoud said, seeing the photographs and tearing up on the witness stand.
The disturbing testimony capped the third week of the trial of former luxury real estate brokers Tal and Oren Alexander and their brother, Alon.
So far — roughly halfway through the federal trial — nine accusers have taken the stand. In sometimes tearful testimony, they have described being sexually assaulted behind closed doors by one or more of the brothers, including on a cruise ship, at two Hamptons rentals, and at an Aspen ski resort.
The hot tub incident stands out as the only alleged assault to take place in public view, with a pool party in full swing. It is not clear whether prosecutors will call the woman herself to the stand or whether she was ever identified.
Lawyers for the brothers say that any sex was consensual and not trafficking. In their cross-examinations of witnesses, the lawyers have repeatedly pointed out that none of the women called the police or took a drug test that could substantiate their claims of being drugged.
During cross-examination, a defense lawyer for Tal Alexander challenged Bodjnoud’s testimony that she remained silent out of fear for the brothers’ power and influence.
“Were you aware that in 2009, Tal Alexander was a 21-year-old copy machine salesman?” asked the lawyer, Milton Williams.
A second witness to the alleged hot tub assault testified on Thursday and Friday under the pseudonym “Isa Brooks.”
Brooks told jurors she saw “a girl, I believe, in a green bikini with a bunch of guys on top of her.”
She said she heard another woman — who, like her, was indoors looking out into the yard — cry out, “I work for the UN and I know what you’re doing!”
Oren Alexander, who was outside, slammed the door in that woman’s face, Brooks testified.
Brooks was called to testify to her own alleged assault, which she said took place earlier in the day on that same Saturday. She was days away from her 17th birthday.
She described struggling and falling in and out of consciousness as Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander, whom she described as the “quieter twin,” joined with two other men in violently assaulting her on a bed.
The four men were saying “degrading words” during the attack, Brooks told the jury.
“I was wondering why they hated me,” she recalled thinking.
On cross-examination, Brooks was questioned by the defense about photographs showing her celebrating her 17th birthday with school pals days after the incident, and was asked why, days after that, she and a girlfriend stayed overnight at another Hamptons home where Tal Alexander was also present.
“I was scared to rock the boat,” she responded of her reluctance to speak out or call the authorities. “I was scared that I would get in trouble.”
The brothers face up to life in prison if convicted of a top count of sex trafficking conspiracy.
