Speaker 1: Hey there, folks, it is Tuesday, March tenth, and they
Speaker 1: were real estates, superstars, playboys, and now a jury says
Speaker 1: predators as well.
Speaker 2: With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Speaker 2: The Alexander Brothers. This has been a salacious story, a
Speaker 2: lot of people keeping an eye on but it and
Speaker 2: to be quite no other way to put it. Real
Speaker 2: estate stars to rapists is what this jury has said.
Speaker 3: That is exactly what happened. These three brothers, the Alexander brothers.
Speaker 3: Two of them are twins, thirty eight year old Orrin
Speaker 3: and Alan and then thirty nine year old tw All
Speaker 3: three men convicted of ten criminal counts. We're talking about
Speaker 3: sex trafficking, sexual exploitation of a minor. Their parents were
Speaker 3: in the court room watching all three of their sons convicted,
Speaker 3: just hearing guilty, guilty, guilty, over and over in a
Speaker 3: Manhattan courtroom yesterday. But yes, this is a massive fall
Speaker 3: from the top of their game. Orn and Tow where
Speaker 3: two of the nation's most successful real estate brokers they
Speaker 3: did luxury homes, were talking. Their clients were Kim Kardashian,
Speaker 3: Kanye West, Lindsay Lohan. So these were well known, prominent
Speaker 3: men who were good looking, and yes, a lot of
Speaker 3: folks knew them as playboys, but it was apparently so
Speaker 3: much more than that.
Speaker 2: And this has been a very much in the headlines
Speaker 2: over the past couple of years and has followed a
Speaker 2: familiar pattern. Let me ask if this sounds familiar, high profile.
Speaker 4: Rich playboys who start to get civil lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Civil lawsuits last couple of years started popping up from
Speaker 2: women saying they were sexually assaulted.
Speaker 4: So what happens?
Speaker 2: Federal authorities start looking into it, which leads to a
Speaker 2: criminal case, which leads to this trial, which leads to convictions.
Speaker 2: And yes, it leads to them having Mark Agnifilo as
Speaker 2: their attorney. So it sounds wild robes, but yes, their
Speaker 2: attorney took on this case, which is absolutely follows a
Speaker 2: very similar pattern to the one he defended with Sean
Speaker 2: Diddy Kombs.
Speaker 3: You know it's I was so interested because obviously Mark
Speaker 3: Agnifilo knows how to try and defend at least these
Speaker 3: types of cases. Because yes, there were a lot of
Speaker 3: similar allegations, including videos and multiple victims.
Speaker 5: In total, more than sixty.
Speaker 3: Women told federal prosecutors that they were raped by one
Speaker 3: or more of these brothers. Sixty women, eleven of them
Speaker 3: testified during this five week trial. They talk about how
Speaker 3: they met these brothers at nightclubs, at parties, even on
Speaker 3: dating apps, and what would happen is these brothers, because
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, rich Power had celebrities all around them,
Speaker 3: they would invite these women to all expense paid getaways
Speaker 3: to the Hamptons, to Aspen, to the Caribbean, to cruises,
Speaker 3: to be on their ships. And so yes, these women
Speaker 3: would accept. But what would happen is, they said they
Speaker 3: would have the brothers would spike their drinks, they would
Speaker 3: be incapacitated, and they would be attacked and in many cases,
Speaker 3: according to prosecutors, they even showed one of these videos
Speaker 3: to the jurors. The brothers would video themselves basically attacking
Speaker 3: incapacitated women, women who were drugged to take photos of them.
Speaker 3: So there was evidence, there were text messages, there were
Speaker 3: captions on these photos that were just horrific to read,
Speaker 3: and this was all played out for the jury.
Speaker 5: It's a tough thing to defend.
Speaker 2: It is the problem that agne Philo had here that
Speaker 2: he maybe didn't necessarily have as badly in the Ditty case.
Speaker 2: I hate to just do direct comparisons. But we did
Speaker 2: just go through this with Diddy. The problem was the
Speaker 2: victims were not problematic in this case. He attacked a
Speaker 2: lot of people in the Diddy trial because they did
Speaker 2: have some questionable backgrounds. Their motives were questionable as well.
Speaker 2: When you have this many women come forward. Out of
Speaker 2: the eleven you mentioned, I think only two of them
Speaker 2: have civil suits, so you can't just say, hey, all
Speaker 2: here for the money. I think even one of them
Speaker 2: was the daughter of a billionaire, so you can't even
Speaker 2: make an argument that she's doing some kind of cash grab.
Speaker 2: But these were women also robes that weren't We're talking
Speaker 2: about drugging and raping and women not coming back and
Speaker 2: coming back and coming back because they wanted to be
Speaker 2: a part of a lifestyle. This is a different, different situation.
Speaker 2: It's hard to get in front of this jury as
Speaker 2: many This was not on television, so we dependent on
Speaker 2: the reporting from people who were in the room robes.
Speaker 4: This is not a situation where you can take.
Speaker 2: Attack sixty women and say all of y'all are just
Speaker 2: dumping on these guys. It was just you cannot impune
Speaker 2: all of these women the way he was able to
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 5: Other case, you make such a good point.
Speaker 3: Some of the women even said, because that was part
Speaker 3: of what the defense tried to tell the jurors, saying,
Speaker 3: this is a cash grab, this is a money grab.
Speaker 3: These women just wanted to enjoy the lifestyle and then
Speaker 3: they wanted to be paid because they regretted what they did,
Speaker 3: and that oftentimes is what we hear from defense attorneys.
Speaker 3: This is obviously a very specific case, but as you
Speaker 3: pointed out, the two women, only two women who have
Speaker 3: the civil lawsuits who testified basically said yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: even want the money. I don't need the money, and
Speaker 3: one of them, as the daughter of a billionaire, could
Speaker 3: really back that up. But they were successful women who
Speaker 3: weren't trying to just get money from the Alexander brothers.
Speaker 3: They wanted justice and so yes to actually, and several
Speaker 3: of them put their names out there, put their faces
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 5: They weren't.
Speaker 3: You know, oftentimes we have victims and certain folks, certainly
Speaker 3: women who testify about being sexually assaulted, especially as miners,
Speaker 3: their identities are protected. Several of the women said, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is who I am. I don't want anything more
Speaker 3: than justice in this case, and it looks like yesterday
Speaker 3: they got it, and these brothers are now looking at
Speaker 3: potentially going to jail for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 5: I was just one of them is married. I believe
Speaker 5: Alin is married.
Speaker 3: So his wife and his parents in the courtroom listening
Speaker 3: to all that testimony seeing the videos, I cannot imagine.
Speaker 2: And these are still young men there in their late
Speaker 2: thirties now, but this behavior that they've been convicted of
Speaker 2: now has gone back at least ten years more, almost
Speaker 2: twenty years more than cases, two decades in some cases.
Speaker 2: So these guys were really young guys at the time
Speaker 2: with a lot of money, a lot of power, meaning
Speaker 2: they rove imagine a We've known guys like this in
Speaker 2: New York, dudes running around influx of cash, twenty five
Speaker 2: years old. We've run into these guys. There was a
Speaker 2: I don't know these guys at all, but I know
Speaker 2: these guys. You know what I mean exactly this idea,
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that all these guys are criminals,
Speaker 2: but I'm saying there's a lifestyle attached to young guys
Speaker 2: having money, jet set.
Speaker 4: Life, and that is what is described.
Speaker 2: So they're in their twenties, they said this was an
Speaker 2: open secret, is the way they put it. Yes, that everyone,
Speaker 2: there's been rumblings about these guys for a decade plus.
Speaker 3: And look, but here's the difference. Are you a womanizer
Speaker 3: or are you a predator? And that was the question,
Speaker 3: and that was what was at stake at trial, and
Speaker 3: Mark Acnavillo and the defense team was trying to paint
Speaker 3: a picture that yes, they are obnoxious, Yes they are womanizers,
Speaker 3: Yes they are playboys, but all of this sex was consensual. However,
Speaker 3: the drugs, the pictures, the videos, the testimony. There was
Speaker 3: one bit of testimony that really stood out to me.
Speaker 3: One of the victims, one of the women, testified that
Speaker 3: she woke up and saw one of the brothers standing
Speaker 3: over her naked and she said, I don't want to
Speaker 3: have sex with you, and she said he laughed and
Speaker 3: looked at.
Speaker 5: Her and said you already did that?
Speaker 4: Hit me? Well, look, Agnaphillo, I think we've seen him
Speaker 4: do this before.
Speaker 2: He Yeah, my client is a jerky not nice people, not.
Speaker 4: A nice guy.
Speaker 2: But yes, did all this, but it doesn't mean he's
Speaker 2: a criminal. Did all this stuff. He's a to your point,
Speaker 2: same pattern and it just didn't work for them this time.
Speaker 2: Obviously they will appeal this. Did you see when is
Speaker 2: the sentencing August?
Speaker 5: It's in August.
Speaker 3: So, but they are looking at spending the rest of
Speaker 3: their lives behind bars. And look, we heard from both
Speaker 3: sides who came out after the verdict talking about their
Speaker 3: reaction to what the jury decided. But we heard from
Speaker 3: the US attorney who prosecuted this case, and look, I
Speaker 3: don't think you can describe it any other way. He said,
Speaker 3: these are chilling, reprehensible, unacceptable acts. And he talked about
Speaker 3: the victims and he commended them for their courage. It
Speaker 3: is courageous to sit there and to recount something that
Speaker 3: is humiliating, that is devastating, to come forward and to testify.
Speaker 3: But he said, they bravely overcame the pain of reliving
Speaker 3: the abuses inflicted upon them and as a result, prevented
Speaker 3: others from becoming victims.
Speaker 5: And that's the point.
Speaker 3: So, especially when we see cases like this where women
Speaker 3: do come forward, and maybe they timidly came forward through
Speaker 3: a few civil lawsuits, then were basically most certainly emboldened
Speaker 3: by hearing other women come forward and tell their stories,
Speaker 3: they also step forward, agreed to testify. And now you
Speaker 3: have all three brothers convicted and most likely going to
Speaker 3: prison for the rest of their lives. When we come back,
Speaker 3: we will tell you what marc agnif Fillo had to
Speaker 3: say to the waiting press after the verdicts.
Speaker 2: All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ on
Speaker 2: this Tuesday morning. Word came down yesterday, high profile, pretty scandalous.
Speaker 2: I think you could say this was a tabloid heavy
Speaker 2: story as well, but certainly a mainstream story. These superstar
Speaker 2: real estate brothers, the Alexander brothers, have now been found
Speaker 2: guilty on all charges they were facing in federal court
Speaker 2: having to do with sex trafficking, sex with a minor,
Speaker 2: sexual assault and what a lot of people say was
Speaker 2: a pattern over the past two decades, almost of them
Speaker 2: not just womanizing, but being sexual predators, drugging women and
Speaker 2: sexually assaulting them. We're talking about sixty women, they say,
Speaker 2: sixty women at least were victims of these guys. And look,
Speaker 2: Margangnafello did what he does. He needs to take I
Speaker 2: don't know how he has time to do anything. The
Speaker 2: cases he has robes, going from Diddy to Mangioni's he's
Speaker 2: been handling this case. He doesn't have a moment. I
Speaker 2: don't know what that dude's life is like.
Speaker 5: Right, We think we're busy, you see him.
Speaker 3: It seems like weekly defending incredibly high profile clients with
Speaker 3: incredibly complicated cases where their lives are literally on the line.
Speaker 3: The pressure of that is hard to even get my
Speaker 3: head around. But Mark Agnifilo came out after everything we
Speaker 3: heard and all of what we certainly read about on
Speaker 3: this salacious trial, and he told this reporters, we believe
Speaker 3: in our client's innocence and we're not going to stop
Speaker 3: fighting until we prevail, and we believe that one day
Speaker 3: we will.
Speaker 5: Prevail one day.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, Sentencing is August sixth, As we mentioned, all
Speaker 3: three brothers facing life in prison for these convictions, and
Speaker 3: they have been in prison, by the way, since they
Speaker 3: were arrested in twenty twenty four in Miami, so they've
Speaker 3: been behind bars for at least the past or rounding
Speaker 3: up two years. But looks like they're not getting out
Speaker 3: anytime soon, and certainly they will appeal, but it just
Speaker 3: look Agnifhilo has his work cutout for him what he's doing.
Speaker 3: But this case was just so heavily weighed in the
Speaker 3: prosecution's favor when you see not just the number of
Speaker 3: women coming forward, but as you pointed out, the women
Speaker 3: who didn't have an agenda, there was no other They
Speaker 3: couldn't poke enough holes or any holes. Truly in a
Speaker 3: lot of these witnesses who came forward with unbelievable tales,
Speaker 3: and to hear you just when we came back to
Speaker 3: just kind of go over what these brothers were convicted
Speaker 3: of doing for more than two decades, it makes me
Speaker 3: feel sick as a woman to think that they were
Speaker 3: able to continue this for.
Speaker 5: Two years because it's scary to step forward.
Speaker 3: That just shows you how frightened these women were or
Speaker 3: how powerful these men seemed to not stop them before.
Speaker 5: Two decades of this type.
Speaker 3: Of abuse is just alarming, and hopefully these types of
Speaker 3: cases prevent that type of thing from happening again.
Speaker 2: It's still happening. Money power pressure, I mean, how can
Speaker 2: you That's what it is? Money power and the press. Sure,
Speaker 2: I guess these women and how do you prove how
Speaker 2: do you prove all these shapes because they didn't know
Speaker 2: there was another victim out there when they became a victim,
Speaker 2: right and they weren't even sure of what happened to them.
Speaker 2: We have seen cases like this when it comes to drugs,
Speaker 2: when it comes to money, when it comes to power,
Speaker 2: when it comes to influence, when it comes to yes, fame,
Speaker 2: to a certain degree, these guys had. What are you
Speaker 2: going to come forward and say, I think this very
Speaker 2: powerful rich guy with all these powerful rich friends raped me.
Speaker 3: I think he did, and I think the police will
Speaker 3: believe me.
Speaker 5: Probably not.
Speaker 3: No, you know, it's just what you're right that is
Speaker 3: such a good point. And look, I also think there's
Speaker 3: the element of these women going on these luxury vacations.
Speaker 3: You think somebody who could afford to fly me to
Speaker 3: Aspen and to happy be around all these important, pretty
Speaker 3: people who were all rich and famous. Maybe I imagined it.
Speaker 3: Maybe I agreed to take the drugs. Maybe it's my
Speaker 3: fault because I drank too much, or I agreed to
Speaker 3: take this drug, or I.
Speaker 5: Put myself in this position.
Speaker 3: I chose to go on this yacht with I chose
Speaker 3: to get on this plane with them. So yes, there
Speaker 3: is a moment where you probably say that was on me.
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have gone.
Speaker 2: But what as a as a defense, maybe a couple
Speaker 2: women you could question a couple women. Maybe you could say, yes,
Speaker 2: they just wanted the vacation. A couple victims were there hopes.
Speaker 2: We're talking about eleven testified and sixty are the counts
Speaker 2: for how many You can't say there are sixty women
Speaker 2: in the world who just decided to go after these
Speaker 2: guys because they got pissed because they didn't want a
Speaker 2: relationship with them. That is that's a tough defense road.
Speaker 2: It is tough themount.
Speaker 3: And in addition to know that some of these women,
Speaker 3: at least two of them testified they were miners when
Speaker 3: this happened, that is a whole other level of responsibility.
Speaker 4: And those two points.
Speaker 2: So the miner was the ugliest part of this trial
Speaker 2: probably and the other part we were just talking about
Speaker 2: who has the power, who is willing to what's the
Speaker 2: lady's name from Tracy Tudor form million dollar listening. She
Speaker 2: just came out in the past week or two also
Speaker 2: with a lawsuit saying she was sexually assaulted. Again, this
Speaker 2: is somebody you look at and you're not thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: she wants her payday with these study need money, were right,
Speaker 2: So that kind of stuff. But the video robe that
Speaker 2: they played this in court, they didn't play it for
Speaker 2: the court room to see. But the jury saw it, Robes.
Speaker 2: This is the way they described this video, was it
Speaker 2: or I think it was Orange in this video with
Speaker 2: a seventeen year old, and I describe he sets up
Speaker 2: the laptop with a certain way, with a certain angle,
Speaker 2: and then you see him essentially lifting up someone's limp
Speaker 2: legs because she's passed out.
Speaker 3: How is that not a crime? I mean, right there,
Speaker 3: right there, how is that anything but a guilty.
Speaker 2: Verd We we don't even need to well, we're going
Speaker 2: to keep talking about it's how do you defend seventeen?
Speaker 4: That's just tough.
Speaker 2: And I think that moment, that video, that story, Robes,
Speaker 2: I guess, probably gets at the heart of just how
Speaker 2: heinous some of the things we heard were.
Speaker 3: Yes, and the hubris of those men for videoing their
Speaker 3: own criminal acts and celebrating it on the video. It
Speaker 3: was undeniable. The jury agreed, and yes, the Alexander brothers
Speaker 3: almost certainly will be going to prison for the rest
Speaker 3: of their life. And with that, everyone, thank you for
Speaker 3: listening to us. We always appreciate you. I'm Amy Roboch
Speaker 3: alongside TJ.
Speaker 5: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.