NEW YORK — More than a month after their arrests, a federal judge in New York on Wednesday ordered the detention of three wealthy brothers from Miami Beach before trial on sex-trafficking charges that allege the Alexander siblings drugged and raped dozens of women over the past two decades.

U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni reached her decision on the pretrial fate of twins Alon and Oren, 37, and older brother Tal, 38, after a three-hour hearing in the Southern District of New York. In denying bonds, the judge found the brothers posed a danger to the community and a risk of flight if they were released on bail proposals in excess of $100 million each.

“They are facing very serious charges,” Caproni said, noting that the brothers could face from 15 years to life in prison if convicted at trial. “This will be a horrible trial for their family to sit through.”

The brothers, represented by defense teams from Miami and New York, were not present for the bail review in Manhattan federal court, as they were being held at a federal detention center in Miami.

During the hearing, Alon and Tal appealed a pair of Miami judges’ orders denying bonds while Oren faced his initial bail review. Lawyers for all three argued that the brothers were neither dangerous nor flight risks, saying their parents were willing to pledge the family’s high-priced real estate assets in Bal Halbour, Miami Beach, the Bahamas and Tel Aviv to secure their bail while each brother stayed in different Miami high-rise apartments guarded by private security around the clock.

The parents, Shlomo and Orly Alexander, were in the New York courtroom Wednesday.

But Caproni said their bond proposals amounted to the Alexander family setting up a “private jail,” an option not available to indigent defendants accused of similar serious crimes.

All three brothers were arrested last month in Miami Beach on a charge of conspiring to commit sex trafficking between 2010 and 2021 in Manhattan, the Hamptons and South Florida, as well as on a charge of sex trafficking a woman (victim-2) in New York using force, fraud or coercion in September 2016. Separately, Tal Alexander faces a charge of sex trafficking a woman (victim-1) in New York in July 2011.

Each of the three charges carries up to life in prison, but the two sex-trafficking counts carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.

The brothers’ prospects of obtaining bonds — and their freedom — before trial were expected to be remote given that the same U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York prevailed in blocking bail for other infamous defendants accused of sex trafficking, from the late Manhattan financier Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide while in detention in 2019, to rap mogul Diddy, who is awaiting trial behind bars.

Oren’s polygraph exam

Before Wednesday’s hearing, Oren’s defense team took the unusual step of offering as evidence a polygraph examination administered by a former FBI agent. James Orr, the retired Tampa-based agent, concluded Oren was truthful when the defendant answered “no” to the following four questions:

1. Did you have sex with (victim-2) when you knew she had been covertly given drugs? 2. In New York, did you have sex with (victim-2) when you knew she had been covertly given drugs? 3. Did you have any kind of sex with (victim-2) when you knew she had secretly been given drugs? 4. In New York, did you have any kind of sex with (victim-2) when you knew she had secretly been given drugs?

In his examination, Orr found that Oren displayed “no significant reactions indicative of deception” in answering the questions.

Oren was also asked the same list of questions by the former FBI agent, including whether he had sex in New York, Florida or elsewhere with “any woman when you knew she had been covertly given drugs.” Oren answered no.

Again, the ex-agent found his responses truthful.

However, there was no evidence in the court record that poly examinations were given to Oren’s brothers, Alon and Tal.

‘Horrific sexual violence’ by brothers: feds

Before Wednesday’s hearing, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York filed a hard-hitting court document in the three brothers’ sex-trafficking case, saying that “each defendant has separately been accused of forcible rape by at least ten women.”

Prosecutors restated allegations that “over 40 women” have reported to the FBI that they were “forcibly raped or sexually assaulted by at least one of the Alexander brothers” between 2002 and 2021.

“At trial, numerous victims ... are expected to testify about the horrific sexual violence committed against them by the Alexander Brothers,” prosecutors Kaiya Arroyo, Elizabeth Espinosa and Andrew Jones wrote in a letter to Judge Caproni. Their testimony “will be corroborated” by non-victim witnesses along with electronic, physical and documentary evidence.

“Moreover, the victims’ accounts strongly corroborate each other, recounting similar experiences of sexual violence from the Alexander Brothers despite occurring in different settings, states, and even different decades,” the prosecutors wrote to the judge.

Sex videos found in Tal’s NY apartment: Feds

In pushing for no bonds for the brothers before trial, prosecutors revealed that FBI agents executed a search warrant on Tal’s Manhattan apartment that he previously shared with his brother, Oren, on the date of the three brothers’ arrests at their Miami Beach homes, Dec. 11.

Agents found a hard drive with photos and videos showing twin brothers Oren and Alon with other men recording images of “themselves with women in states of intoxication and undress.”

“In multiple videos, the women appear initially unaware that they were being recorded and became upset and attempted to hide or flee from the camera after realizing they were being filmed,” the prosecutors wrote to the judge.

“Multiple other videos found in Tal Alexander’s apartment depict Alon, Oren, and other men engaged in sexual contact with women who are visibly under the influence of alcohol or other substances,” their letter continues. “In some instances, at least one defendant (Alon or Oren) and another man physically manipulated the women’s bodies in order to have sex with them while the women did not actively participate in the sexual activity or turned away.”

In the letter, prosecutors urged the Manhattan federal judge to detain the three Alexander brothers before trial. They said Oren and Tal, once-celebrated luxury real estate brokers in New York, and Alon, an executive in the family’s security business in North Miami and Oren’s twin, are a danger to the community and a flight risk — possibly to their parents’ native country, Israel.

Defense attorneys fired back on Tuesday, saying in a statement that the seized videos show no illegal conduct.

“The government points to lawful sexual behavior that it finds offensive, but is absolutely not illegal,” said attorney Deanna Paul, whose law firm, Walden Macht Haran & Williams, is representing Tal Alexander. “It should be focused on legality, not morality. That we’re even talking about these videos shows the complete lack of evidence to support any of the three charges in the indictment.”

Prosecutors noted they have other video recordings made by Oren Alexander showing him and Alon “engaging in sexual activity with at least one identified victim.”

They said all three brothers “drugged victims, rendering them incapable of either consenting or resisting” — then, “when the victims were physically compromised or incapacitated, the defendants held them down and forcibly raped them.”

Defense attorneys: Sex was consensual

Defense attorneys for the three Alexander brothers argue in court papers that they committed no sexual assaults, and that their relationships with the alleged victims were consensual and sometimes involved text messages to get together again.

Their attorneys also claim some of the accusers of pursuing lawsuits last year just to make money off the brothers and of never bringing their complaints to authorities in real time dating back years.

Oren Alexander’s lawyer, Richard Klugh, argued that the hard drive containing videos found by FBI agents at Tal’s Manhattan apartment should be turned over to the defense if the prosecutors are using it as a basis for no bail.

Klugh also argued that the videos “contradict the narrative previously advanced by the government” in prior court papers and detention hearings, suggesting the images are not incriminating.

Family pledged ‘any amount’ to release them

Klugh argued that pretrial detention is meant for Mafia bosses and cartel drug lords — not the Alexander brothers, who have pledged “any amount” of money to secure bonds while paying for private security guards to watch over them at high-rise apartments in Miami.

“Pretrial detention is meant for serious criminal organizations and their leaders, designed to address uncontrollable violent criminal activity and risks that cannot be quelled with any reasonable limitations,” Klugh wrote in a letter to Judge Caproni. “Here there is a material dispute as to whether any federal or other crime happened at all, and whether conduct in a social event was consensual or not.”

Lawyers for Alon and Tal Alexander — Howard Srebnick and Milt Williams — echoed those arguments in court filings in Manhattan federal court as well during court hearings in Miami.

“The government’s opposition, like the Detention Order (in Miami), greatly overstates the risk of flight, which our proposed bail conditions completely and fairly eliminate,” Tal Alexander’s lawyer, Williams, wrote in a letter to the judge in New York.

“Critically, the government ignores the fact that Mr. Alexander and his brothers, Alon and Oren Alexander, all of whom have no criminal history, knew of this criminal investigation since July and made no attempt to flee. Instead, the government attempts unfairly to detain Mr. Alexander for reasons that stem directly from the family’s lawfully earned wealth.”

All three Alexander brothers were arrested 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.

Family has properties in Tel Aviv, the Bahamas

The defense prepared a document with all of the Alexander family’s assets for review by the court and prosecutors, 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 — including the Bal Harbour home of parents Orly and Shlomo Alexander.

All of the properties are owned by members of the family or companies tied to them, though they still have outstanding mortgages on some of them.

However, the Herald’s analysis did not include the parents’ properties in Tel Aviv and the Bahamas, which were eventually disclosed in court.

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