Federal Judge Valerie E. Caproni rejected a defense request in a federal case accusing three brothers of a sex-trafficking conspiracy involving drugging and sexual assaults on women.
In a ruling made public Monday, Caproni denied Alon Alexander’s bid to dismiss one count of the indictment and said his legal strategy could not rely on his 2019 engagement and subsequent marriage, which his lawyers had sought to present as evidence of withdrawal from the alleged scheme.
Caproni’s decision came as jury selection was scheduled to begin next week for Alexander’s trial in Manhattan. The three brothers—Alon, Oren and Tal Alexander—have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail.
The indictment alleges that the brothers used their wealth and influence to attack women over a span from 2002 to 2021. Before the charges were filed, prosecutors said Oren and Tal Alexander sold high-end properties in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles.
Alexander’s attorneys argued that getting engaged and marrying showed he had stepped away from the single life and amounted to a withdrawal from any alleged conspiracy. Caproni said she “saw an opportunity to reach for the prize,” but she denied his motion and ruled that the evidence he sought to introduce would not be allowed at trial.
In her written decision, Caproni said proof of Alexander’s engagement and marriage was irrelevant and would amount to hearsay. She wrote that materials including photographs, social media posts and home videos about the engagement announcement could not be introduced, along with statements from co-defendants and a rabbi.
In a footnote, Caproni addressed Alexander’s contention that his move away from the “single life” meant he abandoned conduct connected to the sex-trafficking conspiracy. She wrote that the argument “fails to adequately grapple with the nuance of the Government’s allegations or the contours of a sex trafficking conspiracy more generally.”
Caproni also said the participation at issue was not “comparable or akin to participation in ‘the single life.’” She wrote: “There are plenty of single men who engage in sexual activity without trafficking, drugging, or raping women and girls,” and added that the inverse of the government’s alleged conspiracy was not, for example, “the engaged life” or “the married life.”
Caproni concluded that there was “nothing about the ‘mere transition from ‘single’ to ‘engaged’ that clearly indicates that Defendant withdrew himself from the conspiracy,” or that he would cease helping his brothers achieve the goals of the conspiracy. She wrote that even if his participation no longer involved having sex with women who were not his fiancee, the transition by itself did not show withdrawal from the alleged conspiracy.
The case will now proceed with the government’s allegations set to be contested before jurors following the judge’s evidentiary ruling on Alexander’s engagement and marriage-based defense.