Oren Alexander stood before a Manhattan judge Tuesday and said he was sorry he had not previously spoken directly to the women accusing him. But he quickly followed that apology with a forceful denial, insisting he had never raped or drugged any of them.
Several victims seated behind him shook their heads, while others could be heard scoffing at his words.
His brothers, Tal and then Alon, also addressed the court. Both denied committing the crimes and appealed to the Manhattan judge for leniency as they faced the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in prison.
It marked the first time since the brothers were arrested nearly two years ago that they had spoken at length in court about the allegations against them.
Their statements came after Judge Valerie Caproni disclosed that Tal and Alon had each been assaulted in jail. Oren, meanwhile, had received disciplinary action for possessing a cellphone.
Wearing beige prison clothing over white long-sleeved shirts, the brothers looked far removed from the sharply dressed real estate dealmakers who once negotiated multimillion-dollar transactions. They admitted to years of partying, casual sexual relationships and behavior toward women they acknowledged was degrading, but said they had changed and deserved another chance.
They presented themselves as committed husbands and fathers who had abandoned their former hedonistic lives for the ordinary routines and responsibilities of family.
Tal Alexander, 40, and twins Oren and Alon, 39, were convicted of sex trafficking crimes
The siblings teared up as the judge handed them each 30 year sentences in federal prison
Tal and Alon became emotional as they described their children growing up without their fathers.
Yet the men they portrayed in court sharply contradicted the picture painted earlier by 12 women who delivered victim impact statements.
The women detailed the lasting damage they said the brothers’ sexual violence had caused, including recurring nightmares, broken relationships, self-harm, deep self-loathing and an ongoing inability to feel secure in their own bodies.
Judge Caproni compared the brothers to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Within their families and communities, she said, they were seen as affectionate husbands, devoted fathers and thoughtful neighbors. To the women who accused them, however, they were predators who drugged, raped and humiliated them.
The judge was especially critical of the brothers’ continued refusal to accept responsibility.
‘You did not have to stand up and say you’ve never raped anyone,’ she told them.
‘That’s a lie and you know it.’
Caproni said their denials showed a profound absence of remorse and weakened their assertions that they had been rehabilitated.
She also challenged the idea that genuine rehabilitation could begin while they continued to reject the findings against them.
Their actions, she said, were monstrous, shameful and degenerate. The judge added that she hoped the brothers felt profound shame for what they had done.
Victims in the gallery wept as Judge Caproni spoke.
But Judge Caproni rejected prosecutors’ demands for life sentences, calling them ‘draconian’ and saying she did not believe any of the three men were beyond redemption.
It was the first time since their arrests nearly two years earlier that the brothers had addressed the allegations against them at length in court.
Alon’s wife, Shani Zigron, did not attend sentencing. She is pictured last month in Miami
Instead, she sentenced each to 30 years behind bars and 10 years of supervised release.
The twins, Oren and Alon, are both 39, while Tal is 40. All three will be in their sixties by the time they leave prison.
The brothers had entered the courtroom that morning with faint smiles, squared shoulders and the same air of confidence they had displayed throughout their six-week trial earlier this year.
They left hollow-eyed and dejected, quietly acknowledging the few supporters who had gathered to witness their fate.
Conspicuously absent were their parents, Orly and Shlomi Alexander, and the wives of Oren and Alon, Kamila Hansen and Shani Zigron.
Only their eldest brother, Niv, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, was present.
The brothers had asked their parents to stay away to spare them further pain, Tal’s attorney told the court. Alon similarly revealed that he had specifically told his wife, Shani, not to attend.
Their parents and Alon’s wife had attended the trial almost daily.
A photo released by the court shows the three brothers partying on a boat with one alleged victim redacted
Maria Suska was one of 12 victims who read an impact statement in court on Tuesday
On Tuesday, the family missed the victim impact statements entirely.
Their sentencing came more than seven months after a Manhattan jury convicted all three brothers of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and a series of other federal offenses, including sex trafficking, aggravated sexual abuse and crimes involving minors.
The six-week trial heard from 11 women who described being lured into the brothers’ wealthy social circles, sometimes with promises of luxury travel and exclusive parties, before being drugged and sexually assaulted.
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The allegations spanned more than a decade and exposed how the siblings, two of them among the most successful real estate brokers in the country, used their wealth, influence and connections in New York and Miami to prey on women.
Tuesday’s hearing began with 11 women addressing the court in person, while a prosecutor read a statement on behalf of a twelfth.
Though their experiences differed, their accounts shared common themes of humiliation, degradation and a sense that the brothers had taken something they could never recover.
Lindsey Acree told Judge Caproni she had spent weeks preparing her statement, but kept her notes folded and spoke from the heart.
Looking Oren directly in the eye, she condemned the ‘messed up’ acts he and his brothers had committed together, telling the judge that even life sentences would not begin to account for the harm they had caused.
‘I am here for my daughter,’ Acree said. ‘I will do whatever it takes so that she never lives in a world as demented as you guys tried to make it.’
Oren and Kamila Alexander are pictured in December 2023, seven months after their Florida Keys wedding
Tal Alexander married Arielle in October 2023. If circumstances were different, they might still be enjoying the honeymoon phase of their union. But as soon as the allegations against the siblings were filed, Arielle walked away
Recently, she said, her eight-year-old daughter had been at a sleepover when she and her friends decided to Google their parents.
Searching Acree’s name brought up reports of her ordeal over Memorial Day weekend in 2011, when she was 25 and, she testified, was drugged and raped by Tal Alexander and another man at a rented home in the Hamptons.
She told jurors she was incapacitated after drinking wine and recalled Tal setting up a tripod as the men laughed while raping her.
Fighting back tears, Acree recalled her daughter returning home and telling her that ‘bad stuff’ had appeared online about her mother and the ‘bad guys’ she had testified against.
Acree asked if she wanted to talk about it. Instead, her daughter covered her ears and began to cry.
Behind her, other victims and their supporters wept, passing a large box of tissues along the row.
Alexis Zettle, who was 23 when she met Tal Alexander at a Manhattan nightclub in January 2015, recalled how he had initially swept her off her feet, presenting himself as a ‘prince’ offering her a fairytale romance.
Alon and Oren in 2015 at the height of their real estate success
But she alleged he repeatedly drugged and raped her, then pressured her into having sex with his wealthy business associates.
Zettle, who filed a separate civil lawsuit in February 2025 and whose allegations were not part of the federal trial, mourned the person she had been before the Alexanders ‘got their hands on me.’
She ended with a pointed reference to the ‘A-Team’ nickname Tal and Oren had earned as luxury real estate brokers.
‘You’re not the A-Team, and you’re not above the law,’ she declared.
The rebuke drew a smattering of finger snaps and approving nods from the gallery behind her.
Prosecutors urged Judge Caproni to impose life sentences, arguing that the brothers’ cruelty had condemned their victims to a lifetime of suffering.
Their defense attorneys, however, pleaded for the minimum 15-year terms. Howard Srebnick, representing Alon, pointed to a lie detector test his client claimed to have passed in prison as evidence supporting his innocence.
Judge Caproni was unimpressed.
‘Mazel tov that you passed it,’ she responded, drawing laughter from the courtroom.
She pointed out that liars could also pass polygraphs, which is why they are not accepted as evidence in federal court.
In a letter to the court, Alon’s wife Shani Zigron, an Israeli model and military veteran, said she had heard the women’s stories and seen their tears.
But she insisted she would never have stayed with a man who raped anyone and would have taken their two young daughters and left.
She urged Judge Caproni to impose the minimum 15 years, arguing that a life term would leave him to die behind bars.
Lexi Zettle alleged Tal repeatedly drugged and raped her, then pressured her into having sex with his wealthy business associates
Judge Caproni said she would recommend the brothers serve their sentences in separate federal prisons, citing concerns about their influence over one another, despite their pleas to remain together.
In her closing remarks, Judge Caproni acknowledged the suffering their imprisonment would cause their families, particularly their children, who would one day have to confront the reasons their fathers had been locked away.
She said the brothers’ parents were unlikely ever to see their sons as free men again but stressed that the responsibility for that suffering lay with the defendants themselves.
The women who addressed the court had spoken repeatedly of shame, she noted, but that shame belonged to the brothers, not their victims. Only by accepting responsibility could they begin to atone for what they had done.
Judge Caproni also imposed fines of $300,000 each on Oren and Alon and $350,000 on Tal. Oren was given an additional $50k fine over a video that prosecutors said showed him raping a 17-year-old girl.
Attorneys for all three brothers have vowed to appeal their convictions.
