NEED TO KNOW
- Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander are facing new federal charges after a superseding indictment was filed in the Southern District of New York on Thursday, May 8
- A grand jury voted to indict all three brothers on additional charges of sex trafficking, including one incident allegedly involving a minor in 2009
- The three wealthy brothers previously entered a not guilty plea
Tal and Alon Alexander, who are already in federal custody for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, are now facing additional federal charges, including one that allegedly involves a minor.
A superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of New York accuses one or more of the three brothers – Tal, 38, and 37-year-old twins Oren and Alon – of sex trafficking an additional six alleged victims.
The indictment alleges that one of those six victims was not yet 18 in 2009, when Alon and Tal allegedly “caused [the victim] to engage in at least one commercial sex act.”
Tal, Oren and Alon previously entered a not guilty plea to the initial federal charges they were facing, which involved just two alleged victims. Now, all three are facing additional federal counts.
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Prosecutors allege in court documents that the men “surreptitiously drugged women’s drinks” at times and “held down their victims during the rapes and sexual assaults and ignored screams and explicit requests to stop.”
The brothers would also “use fraud, deception, fraud, and coercion, to cause victims to travel with them or meet them in private locations .. before then using various methods, including drugging the victims and, at times physical force, to rape and sexually assault victims.”
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Prosecutors also now say “long-running sex trafficking scheme, as part of which they raped and sexually assaulted women to whom they had provided material benefits” stretches back to 2009.
This all comes as Alon and Oren are preparing to fight criminal charges in Miami-Dade County after the state’s attorney’s office charged both men with sexual battery.
All three are currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Oren is charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, three counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and one count of coercing an individual to travel.
Tal faces two counts of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, three counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of coercing an individual to travel and one count of sex trafficking a minor by force, fraud or coercion.
Alon stands accused of two counts of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, three counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, two counts of coercing an individual to travel and one count of sex trafficking a minor by force, fraud or coercion.
The brothers are expected to enter pleas to these charges in court sometime next week.
“There is no merit to these new accusations, which appear to an effort to salvage a factually and legally unfounded case,” Oren’s lawyer, Richard Klugh, said in a statement to PEOPLE. “Let there be no mistake: we will fight any new spin offered in these charges and vindicate our client’s innocence.”
Tal’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
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