NEW YORK (AP) — The first witness at the sex trafficking trial of three brothers, two of them high-end real estate brokers, testified Tuesday that the thrill of attending a party at actor Zac Efron’s apartment
turned into a nightmare when, hours later, one of the brothers repeatedly raped her at their home and taunted her about it.
The woman, who testified under a pseudonym, is one of several alleged victims expected to testify against brothers Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander, who are accused of teaming up to drug and rape women and girls over several years.
Lawyers for the brothers say the sex was consensual.
Prosecutors say the Alexander brothers used their ties to the wealthy and famous to lure multiple victims.
The woman said she was 20, an anthropology major in college, when she met two of the brothers at the party at Efron's New York apartment. She accompanied a friend who had recently met Tal Alexander, and who invited her there to watch the last game of the 2012 NBA Finals. She said she had little interaction with Efron, who is not accused of any wrongdoing.
After the game, the woman went to an afterparty at a Manhattan nightclub, where she said she was given a drink and remembered little afterward until she woke up naked on a bed in another apartment with Alon Alexander, also naked, standing over her. She said she repeatedly tried to get up, but he kept pushing her back, prompting her to say: “I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“Haha, you already did,” she recalled him saying as he “laughed in my face.”
She said he then overpowered and raped her. While the attack was happening, Tal Alexander walked into the room briefly, but said and did nothing, the woman told the jury. He seemed “super nonchalant," she said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser said in her opening statement to the jury that the Alexander brothers “masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators." Smyser said they used “whatever means necessary” including luxury accommodations, flights, drugs, alcohol and sometimes brute force to lure women into situations where they could be raped.
Attorney Teny Geragos, representing Oren Alexander, urged the jury to reject prosecutors' “monstrous story.”
She said the brothers, who got out of college in 2008, were successful, ambitious and sometimes arrogant as they pursued women in nightclubs, bars, restaurants and online in what is known as “hookup culture,” hoping to have as much sex as possible.
“You may find this behavior immoral, but it is not criminal,” Geragos said. She said some of the brothers' accusers were hoping to enrich themselves with lawsuits and spoke of themselves as victims only after feeling regret that they had done illegal drugs or had sex outside of relationships with their boyfriends.
Attorney Deanna Paul, representing Tal Alexander, warned jurors that the subject matter of the case was disturbing and will seem like an R-rated movie, especially after prosecutors portrayed the brothers as “monsters.”
“In their early 20s, Tal and his brothers were party boys. They were womanizers. They slept with many, many women,” she said.
She urged jurors to reject the criminal charges against the brothers if they conclude that the accusers' testimony was unreliable.
Oren and Tal Alexander were real estate dealers who specialized in high-end properties in Miami, New York and Los Angeles. Their brother, Alon, graduated from New York Law School before running the family’s private security firm. Tal is 39 years old while Alon and Oren, who are twins, are 38.
An indictment alleges that the men conspired to entice women to join them at vacation destinations such as New York's Hamptons by providing flights and luxury hotel rooms.
The brothers have been held without bail since their December 2024 arrest in Miami, where they lived.
During her testimony Tuesday, the trial's first witness said she fled the room where Alon Alexander had attacked her after he fell asleep. The woman remained composed through much of her testimony, though she got choked up several times. She cried as she recalled reaching out several years after the attack to friends she had told about the experience so she could be reminded that others loved her.
