MIAMI — After a week in state custody on rape charges, Alon and Oren Alexander made their first appearances in Miami federal court on Friday afternoon to face charges of sex-trafficking dozens of women over a decade in New York, South Florida and elsewhere.

The 37-year-old Miami Beach twins appeared before a magistrate judge, who set a bond hearing for Dec. 30, which means they’ll remain in federal custody in Miami until at least that time. From there, prosecutors are seeking to transfer them, along with their older brother Tal Alexander, to federal court in New York City, where they’ve been charged with conspiring to commit sex-trafficking and two related rapes between 2010 and 2021.

The afternoon hearing set the stage for the next legal moves by their defense team, which is seeking to win them release from federal custody before being formally arraigned in New York. The hearing was brief and lightly attended aside from media members and brothers’ parents.

Tal Alexander, 38, has been in federal custody since his arrest last week. If convicted, all three Alexander brothers — who have amassed tremendous wealth in the Manhattan and Miami Beach real estate markets as well as the family’s security business — face up to life in prison.

Last Friday, a federal magistrate judge denied Tal’s request for a bond — a massive proposal of $115 million to be secured by his parents’ Bal Harbour waterfront home and other family real estate holdings in Miami Beach — saying he is a “risk of flight” because of his wealth and ties to Israel.

But his defense team has asked the judge to reopen his detention hearing, allow further questioning of the lead FBI agent in the case and reconsider the bond denial. The outcome is likely to influence similar bail proposals by the twin brothers who were moved to federal custody on Thursday.

While the federal sex-trafficking case in New York moves forward, the state rape cases in Miami-Dade will idle because the brothers cannot be prosecuted in two different places at the same time. Circuit Judge Lody Jean set a preliminary trial date for the twins in state court for March 10, but the case in Manhattan federal court will take precedent.

The lead FBI agent testified at Tal’s detention hearing last Friday that she interviewed 40 women with credible rape complaints against at least one of the three Alexander brothers. The indictment accuses the brothers of luring dozens women to parties, hotels and homes, then drugging and raping them. It also alleges they sometimes paid for the women’s transportation, traveling across state lines or to other countries, including Mexico.

Special Agent Justine Atwood testified in Miami federal court that the victims did not know one another, came from different places and were sexually assaulted at various times over the past 20 years.

In her detention order, Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid found that Tal Alexander was not a danger to the community but was rather a flight risk, citing the “strong weight of the evidence,” the potentially “significant sentence,” and his “extensive financial resources” and foreign connections.

“In considering the weight of the evidence, the government anticipates the testimony of numerous victims and witnesses, electronic evidence, physical evidence, and documentary evidence, among other things,” Reid wrote in her order, pointing out that “some victims reported being held down and/or unable to move during the assaults due to the effects of the drugs given to them by [Tal] Alexander and/or other conspirators.”

“[Tal] Alexander has international contacts, which include his parents who are Israeli,” Reid further noted. “The government also proffered that Alexander frequently travels internationally, including to Israel and the Bahamas, and usually travels to these destinations by private jet and/or yacht. These travel arrangements are also frequently done at a moment’s notice and not scheduled in advance.”

Reid added: “Home confinement at his parents’ home, as he has requested, would give him direct ocean access and the means to quickly flee.”

But this week, Tal Alexander’s legal team asked Reid to reopen the detention hearing and put his transfer to New York on hold. His attorneys, including Howard Srebnick, want to address any investigative statements by the FBI agent before her testimony, as well as the family’s assets, a higher bond proposal and the prosecutors’ assertion that the defendant could not be extradited from Israel.

Federal prosecutors opposed the reopening of Tal Alexander’s detention hearing. In in a response filed late Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Astigarraga wrote: “None of the reasons cited in the [defendant’s] motion constitute ‘new evidence’ warranting the court to reconsider or reopen the detention hearing.”

A friend of the brothers, Ohad Fisherman, 39, also caught up in the alleged sex crimes, was taken into state custody Wednesday after returning early from his honeymoon in Japan. He’s been charged by Miami-Dade prosecutors with sexual battery in one of the alleged rape incidents. Fisherman is accused of holding down a woman in a Miami Beach apartment on New Year’s Eve in 2016 as Oren and Alon Alexander took turns raping her.

His defense attorney, Jeffrey Sloman, denied any wrongdoing.

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