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Indicted twin Oren Alexander wasn't mistakenly flown by US Marshals from Miami to New York, but he almost was

Jay Weaver and Ana Claudia Chacin, Miami Herald on

Published in News & Features

MIAMI — Blame the Oren Alexander snag on a “clerical error.”

Oren — one of three wealthy Alexander brothers charged with forcing dozens of women to have sex with them — was not accidentally flown by the U.S. Marshals Service on Tuesday to New York before his bond hearing in Miami federal court that afternoon.

But he almost was.

It turns out that the U.S. Marshals in New York mistakenly issued a transportation order to bring Oren from a federal lockup in Miami to a detention center in New York City, according to a spokesman for the agency. On Tuesday morning, Marshals deputies were transporting Oren in a vehicle to Miami International Airport when they realized that he still had a bail hearing in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.

“We caught it in time,” U.S. Marshals spokesman Brady McCarron told the Miami Herald on Wednesday. “He was never on an airplane and never left the state.”

McCarron said the Marshals contacted the Miami magistrate judge overseeing Oren Alexander’s hearing, but there was some confusion in the message.

Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said Tuesday in court there was a “miscommunication of orders” with the Marshals in New York, noting that Oren had been accidentally “shipped to New York” and could “not make” his own bail hearing before him.

Torres ordered the Marshals to bring Oren Alexander back to Miami for his bond hearing on Wednesday, because the defendant couldn’t be legally transferred to New York without a removal order from the judge.

“We apologize for the confusion,” Torres said.

But as things turned out, Oren Alexander had been in the custody of the Marshals in Miami the entire time.

On Wednesday, Oren canceled his bail hearing, opting to hold it in Manhattan federal court next Wednesday. He also agreed to his removal from federal custody in Miami to New York City, where he and his two brothers were charged last month in a sex-trafficking conspiracy indictment.

His twin brother, Alon, and their older brother, Tal — whose $100 million-plus bond proposals were rejected by Miami judges because they could potentially flee to Israel before trial — will appeal those decisions next Wednesday as well in New York.

“All three brothers will appear before the judge on that day,” defense attorney Howard Srebnick told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Miami. “We’re hopeful that the Marshals will get them there, but either way, we want to make our presentation as to why none of the three is a risk of flight.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the three brothers remained in the Miami federal detention center.

Srebnick, who represents Alon and Tal but was standing in for Oren’s lawyer, Richard Klugh, at Wednesday’s brief hearing, continued to say the Alexander family was willing to put up “any amount” to secure the brothers’ release from custody while they await trial.

“The parents have pledged everything they have on the planet Earth to secure the bond,” Srebnick said.

“It is quite clear that these boys are not going to leave their family destitute,” he said. “And it’s equally implausible as the government had suggested that they’re going to flee to Israel, a country that’s in war, that without a passport, you can’t get into Israel, and if somehow Jason Bourne or James Bond could get into Israel, they’d be extradited right back to the United States.”

 

42 women have come forward

All three Alexander brothers were arrested in December in Miami Beach on charges of luring women to swank locales in New York City, the Hamptons, Aspen and Miami Beach by paying for their travel and then plying them with drug-laced drinks before allegedly raping them.

According to the FBI and federal prosecutors, 42 women have accused at least one of the three brothers of sexual assault in the sex-trafficking conspiracy indictment, which was filed in Manhattan federal court.

All three are expected to enter not guilty pleas at their eventual arraignments in New York City.

On Tuesday, the New York federal judge, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, scheduled the bail hearings in New York for all three Alexander brothers next Wednesday. She judge denied requests by Alon and Tal to delay their transfers from Miami to New York.

“The intention is to coordinate all of the bond hearings up there in court,” Oren Alexander’s lawyer, Klugh, told the Herald. “She has control over the bonds.”

Miami judges reject proposed bail deals

This approach was worked out, Klugh said, after Miami Magistrate Judge Eduardo Sanchez on Friday rejected the defense bid to free Alon. Sanchez said it was not because Alon necessarily posed a danger to the community but because of the risk he might try to leave the country for Israel, where the family has many connections.

“These are extremely serious charges that carry extremely serious penalties,” Sanchez said, citing the FBI’s investigation indicating 42 women have accused the three brothers of rape and that each defendant potentially faces up to life in prison.

Another Miami magistrate judge, Lisette Reid, denied a $115 million bond request in December by the third brother, Tal, 38, who is charged with the twins in the conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and related rape charges between 2010 and 2021 in New York, Miami Beach and other places.

All three Alexander brothers were arrested on an indictment filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan federal court. The 37-year-old twin brothers were also charged with sexual battery by the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office. They were granted bonds by a state circuit judge and then transferred to federal custody.

Lawyers for the twins and the older brother proposed they stay with their parents in Bal Harbour or in high-rise apartments in the Miami area with private security around the clock. They argued that their parents, Orly and Shlomo Alexander, were willing to risk pledging all their assets to secure a combined bond because they know the sons would not leave them destitute.

The defense prepared a document with all of the family’s assets for review by the judge and federal prosecutor, a record entered under seal from public scrutiny. The full extent of the family’s wealth isn’t known but a Miami Herald analysis of public records identified residential and commercial properties with an assessed market value of more than $74 million owned by members of the family or companies tied to them, though they still have outstanding mortgages on some of them.

The Alexanders had previously pledged $115 million in assets — using as collateral the parents’ Bal Harbour home, the Kent security office building in North Miami and Oren, Tal and Alon’s homes in Miami Beach — in an unsuccessful bid to have Tal Alexander released from federal custody as he awaits trial on sex trafficking charges.

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©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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