As the third week of the Alexander brothers’ trial concluded on Friday, more of the brothers’ alleged victims appeared in court to testify about how they allegedly drugged and assaulted them.
Tal and Oren Alexander, former luxury real estate moguls and co-owners of Official Partners, and their brother Aron, a former security executive, are now facing federal sex trafficking charges.
The third week of the trial featured testimony from the alleged victims and a woman who said she witnessed two of the brothers raping a woman in the Hamptons.
The prosecution also tried to explain how the brothers used various drugs in manipulating the women, but the defense continued to try to poke holes in the witness testimony.
The trial is expected to last until the end of this month, and if convicted, the brothers could be sentenced to 15 years in prison. Read on for the biggest takeaways from this week’s courtroom.
Underage Aspen woman testifies
This week, a woman named Maylene Gehret testified that she was drugged and raped by Aron Alexander when she was 17 years old in Aspen, Colorado. Gehret said she and a friend accepted an invitation to an afterparty with Aron and his twin, Oren, after meeting Aron at the now-closed Bootsy Bellows Club bar, The Real Deal reported.
The young women were then taken by the twins to an empty hotel room with two beds. Before leaving the bar, Gehret said her head felt so heavy that it was difficult to support it. When she arrived at her hotel room, Gehret said Aron “violently” penetrated her with his fingers in the bathroom, causing her to bleed.
Gehret said he was finally able to leave after giving Aron his cell phone. Aron allegedly used it to follow him on Instagram and sent a message from Gehret’s account saying, “Hi, baby.”
Gehret is one of the women who sued the brothers in 2024.
In the second week of the trial, prosecutors sought to uncover the extensive means by which the brothers allegedly obtained drugs before traveling with the women and used them to incapacitate and rape them. Text messages, emails and messages on social media between the brothers and other men showed they were working on obtaining MDMA, Ambien and GHB ahead of such trips.
The brothers’ lawyers have continued to characterize the encounter as a sour relationship, while seeking to discredit the alleged victims by finding inconsistencies in testimony.
Alleged Hamptons Victim
Lindsay Akeley also testified this week that Tal raped her in 2011, when she was 25, after inviting her to a rental property in the Hamptons.
At the property, Ackley began feeling “heavy” and “zombie-like” after drinking part of a glass of wine given to him by Tal before entering the hot tub with Tal and the group. Tal eventually invited Ackley to her sauna, where she said Tal held her down before another man entered the sauna.
Then, after an indeterminate amount of time, she remembered that the men took her to the gym inside the house. At that point, Ackley said she continued to feel weak and eventually felt “numb.” Ackley said she recalled that Tal left the room and returned with a tripod, and after setting it up, Tal and the other man laughed and raped her.
The next morning, Ackley said Tal told her it was time for her and her friend to leave. In an email Ackley sent her mother around the time, she described the trip as a “fun time” but wrote that the two men she was with acted like “assholes.”
Defense attorney Deanna Paul questioned Ackley about what she thought were discrepancies in her story between when she first shared the article with the New York Times in 2024 and when she later shared information with the government.
First witness of rape suspect testifies
A woman named Avishan Bodynud also testified this week that she witnessed Tal and one of his brothers rape another woman in 2009 when she was invited to a party in the Hamptons.
Bozinudo said he remembers seeing Tal, one of his brothers and several other men grab the woman by the wrist and drag her through the house to the backyard of the property, where he saw Tal and either Oren or Aron rape the woman in the hot tub. At that point, Bodynude said he heard the woman screaming, and at the same time heard the sounds of his brothers “feeling pleasure.”
Ms Bozinudo told the court she was “fearful” at the time but did not call police. One reason was that the man who had invited her onto the property, David Rabelo, had told her he had humiliated her and warned her that the Alexander family was powerful and had strong connections. The next morning, before leaving the premises, Bodynude wrote, “Rapists!” There is eyeliner painted on one of the property’s doors.
Defense attorneys pressed Bozinoud about the initial information she sent to the FBI in 2024, when she heard her brother had been arrested. In the email, Bodinoud said she “didn’t see” but “heard” the attack, but Bodnoud claimed in court that she didn’t share all the details of her memory of that day in the initial email.
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Email Lillian Dickerson
