Lawyers for the Alexander brothers hail Diddy sex-trafficking acquittal as 'heartening'

Oren and Tal Alexander are scheduled for trial in January. They, and their brother Alon, are accused of sex trafficking.Courtesy of Douglas EllimanSean Combs was acquitted of sex-trafficking charges that his lawyers had described as federal overreach.The feds' next big sex trafficking case targets Miami and NYC real estate moguls Tal and Oren Alexander.The Diddy acquittal is good news for the Alexanders and a third brother, their lawyers told BI.Attorney Deanna Paul waited for last week's Sean "Diddy" Combs verdict with TV court coverage blaring and her X feed scrolling — and she greeted his acquittals as very good news for her own high-profile sex trafficking client."My initial reaction was that the jury got it right," said Paul, attorney for luxury real estate broker Tal Alexander, one of three Alexander brothers charged with sex trafficking conspiracy.The Alexanders' case is set for trial in January. It will be the Department of Justice's next big celebrity sex-trafficking trial, to be held in the same courthouse as Combs' was.The Alexander brothers — Tal and Oren were luxury brokers in Miami and Manhattan, and Alon was an executive at his family's private security firm — operated a long-running sex trafficking scheme, the government alleges."A verdict like this is refreshing and it's heartening because it means the jury did its job," Paul, a former New York City prosecutor, told Business Insider on Thursday.The Alexander brothers were indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.Department of JusticePaul followed the Combs trial closely as an expert commentator for a range of outlets, including Fox News and MSNBC. She is part of a defense team that now considers the Combs verdict as proof that a federal jury in Manhattan can see past the raw emotion of a sex trafficking case and find that the evidence, heart-wrenching though it might be, does not fit the law.The brothers' lawyers say that in their case, that misfitting of the evidence to the law stems in large part from a single word in the federal sex-trafficking statute: "Commercial."Their 2024 indictment accuses the three of conspiring to cause at least six female victims to cross state lines for the purpose of commercial sex acts, meaning assaults and rapes stretching back to 2009.The brothers, acting "sometimes alone and sometimes together," drugged the women or physically held them down before violating them, the indictment says. The victims include one woman who was a minor at the time, prosecutors also say.But were these "commercial" sex acts, as the federal sex-trafficking law requires?Yes, prosecutors say. The indictment alleges that the three brothers lured their victims using "material benefits" — luxury parties and events with commercial value.In the Combs case, the word "commercial" was not in dispute. Federal prosecutors alleged that Combs paid male escorts to cross state lines and have sex with his girlfriends as he watched and filmed them.But there are no cash transactions or prostitution alleged in the Alexander brothers' indictment.Instead, to quote from the indictment, the victims were lured to their sexual assaults with the promise of "domestic and international travel to vacation destinations, luxury accommodations at high-end hotels and vacation properties, and access to other luxury experiences and events."This interpretation of commercial sex acts "would effectively federalize any type of date rape" involving gifts and interstate travel, argues Jason Goldman, who is repping all three brothers."If a perpetrator met a woman on a dating app, invited her to dinner, paid for the dinner, and then sexually assaulted her later that night, it would constitute sex trafficking under the government's theory," Goldman wrote last month in a filing seeking to dismiss the indictment's sex trafficking counts.This is "an entirely novel and untested criminal theory," Goldman argues."We are aware of no indictment charging sex trafficking on the grounds that 'promises of luxury experiences, travel, and accommodations' — i.e., a weekend invitation to a summer beach house and the means to get there—provide the 'commercial' basis for a sex trafficking charge," he wrote.There also needs to be a "causal" connection between the thing of value and what happened next — meaning a quid-pro-quo where something is exchanged between individuals for sex, he argues."That causal connection is absent here," Goldman wrote.Last month, a trio of federal appellate judges denied bail for the brothers, but not before one voiced skepticism that there's anything akin to a commercial sex act in the prosecution's theory.A spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan declined to comment on the case beyond the prosecution's court filings. The government is due to respond to the motion for dismissal by Thursday, and may well argue that this causal connection is not only present, but strong.The parties, luxury accommodations, and travel perks were essentially elaborately planned bait, the indictment alleges.Well in advance of these attacks, the brothers and their friends "shared photographs of women and girls to select those they found sufficiently attractive to invite" to the parties and events where they would be attacked, the indictment alleges."The defendants and other men attending the trips pooled financial resources in order to pay for flights and other travel expenses for the women and girls," the indictment also says.It may be up to a jury, ultimately, to decide if gifts such as plane travel, event invitations, and what prosecutors call offers of "luxury experiences" fit the definition of commercial sex acts, a term originally meant to describe prostitution.The federal sex trafficking statute is a powerful tool, said Megan Lundstrom, CEO of Polaris, which advocates for sex- and labor-trafficking victims and operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline.Still, Lundstrom told Business Insider, the statute "would benefit from clearer language around modern forms of psychological, emotional, and financial coercion" — such as the abuses of trust and authority alleged in the Combs and Alexander cases."Cases like these reveal not a stretch of prosecutorial power, but rather how limited the public's understanding of trafficking still is," Lundstrom added, saying that often, "it happens within families, in intimate relationships, and under the undue influence of power or celebrity."Lawyers for the three brothers say the government's case is based on uncorroborated victim testimony."They have pleaded not guilty to the indictment, and vehemently deny the allegations within it," Goldman told BI Thursday.He called last week's Combs verdict, which acquitted Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering, "a resounding rejection of the government's sex trafficking theory," consistent with the government-overreach arguments in last month's dismissal motions.The brothers are next due in court on August 19, with a trial date set for January 5.Read the original article on Business Insider

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