Real estate agent shocked by sexual harassment allegations against Alexander Brothers

This story has been updated to include information about another lawsuit filed Tuesday.

For more than a decade, Oren Alexander was one of the biggest names in luxury real estate in Miami and New York City. He co-brokered the record-breaking purchase of a penthouse at 220 Central Park South in 2019, a deal for nearly $240 million.

The real estate empire he helped build in the metropolises of both cities, with glass and steel buildings worth millions of dollars, is now crumbling in the face of increasing allegations of violent sexual assault.

Mr. Alexander, 36, was accused in two separate lawsuits this year of sexually assaulting two women over a decade ago. Oren’s identical twin brother, Alon, an executive at a private security firm, is also named as a defendant in both lawsuits.

The twins are accused of sexually assaulting two women together in separate incidents – one woman says she was attacked in a party mansion in the Hamptons, the other says she was drugged and then attacked in Manhattan.

On Monday, Isabelle Kirshner, an attorney for Oren and Alon Alexander, defended the brothers and called the lawsuits a money-making scheme in a statement to the New York Times. “It is disappointing (but not surprising) that the plaintiffs’ attorneys are resorting to their usual tactics – filing similarly fanciful boilerplate lawsuits against supposedly wealthy individuals without considering the specific facts or the truth,” she wrote in the statement. “In fact, our preliminary investigation of the lawsuits has revealed clear and irrefutable evidence vindicating the Alexanders, and we look forward to presenting it in court.”

Oren Alexander, along with his older brother Tal Alexander, made a name for himself in the real estate business, including the record-breaking penthouse. Together they founded Official, a brokerage firm specializing in super-rich clients.

The brothers were a fixture in Miami and New York’s nightlife, almost always with Alon by their side, regularly appearing in Page 6 news and also in an article about their weekend routine in the New York Times in 2022.

On Tuesday, 37-year-old Tal Alexander and his brothers were named in a separate lawsuit. In a lawsuit filed in New York state, a woman claimed she was sexually assaulted by both Tal and Alon in 2012. In the suit, she said Oren was present and watched the attack. Michael J. Willemin, an attorney for the woman, said her lawsuit against the Alexander brothers “is intended to send the message that the law applies even to the very wealthy and well-connected, including the Alexanders.”

Mr Willemin later added: “We have no doubt that the Alexanders will assemble an army of PR representatives and private investigators to launch a campaign to expose the victims, but she will not be intimidated and this is not a ‘he says, she says’.”

Ms. Kirshner, Oren and Alon’s lawyer, said: “We have reviewed the allegations contained in the complaint and reject them as pure fiction.”

Stefan Friedman, a spokesman for Tal, said: “It is unfortunate but entirely to be expected that blackmailers will join the ranks in light of the allegations against Tal’s brothers. However, Tal has done absolutely nothing wrong and anyone who peddles outrageous lies in the hope of making a quick buck will be disappointed.”

Tal is not named in the initial complaints, but Evan Torgan, a founding partner of the law firm Torgan Cooper + Aaron, which represents the two women who filed the earlier lawsuits against Oren and Alon, said he has received additional allegations of sexual harassment against all three brothers since last week. “The barrage of phone calls and emails continues,” Mr. Torgan said. Tal Alexander addressed the allegations in an email he sent to his colleagues at Official on Sunday.

“I find the actions described in these messages reprehensible and would never act or behave in such a manner. Any claims to the contrary are simply false,” he said in the email.

It also states: “I have little doubt that, given my close relationship with my brothers, at some point a lawyer or many lawyers will seek to implicate me in the allegations against Alon and Oren.”

The lawsuits against the twins were filed just before the statute of limitations on civil sexual assault lawsuits expired in New York and were first reported this month in The Real Deal, a real estate trade magazine.

Mr. Torgan said he had met women who said they had been attacked in New York City and the Hamptons, as well as in Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida. Some of the allegations date back to 2004, when Oren and Alon were high school students in Miami.

“Many women didn’t come forward immediately because they felt responsible. Some of them were on dates when this happened,” Mr Torgan said.

Tal and Oren founded the Alexander Team, a division of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, in 2012.

In 2021, a year before they left Elliman to start their own brokerage firm, the Alexander team reported revenue of over $1.8 billion.

They founded Official in 2022 with Nicole Oge, a former marketing executive for Douglas Elliman and WeWork, and two other co-founders. In 2023, the Alexander brothers announced $260 million in closed deals and were named to The Hollywood Reporter’s 2023 Power Brokers list of top agents in New York City.

In an internal memo sent to Official employees on Friday and obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Oge wrote that the brokerage firm’s values ​​”were deeply hurt when the disturbing allegations against our former partner, Oren Alexander, were revealed. They run counter to everything we stand for as a company.”

She added: “Oren was immediately isolated from the business, his licenses were severed and the process of his removal from the property is well underway.”

Last week, Oren Alexander announced he was resigning from his position at Official. On Friday, his photo and bio were removed from the company’s website.

As of Saturday, Official has deactivated its real estate licenses in Florida and New York and Oren has given up his minority stake in the company, Ms. Oge confirmed. Emails to his official address automatically received a response saying he was no longer associated with the brokerage.

Reactions from brokers and others in the real estate industry included questions about why the allegations took so long to come to light. One of the two women who filed suit accuses both Oren and Alon of attacking her at Sir Ivan’s Castle, a party mansion in the Southampton town of Water Mill. The other claims she was drugged at a Manhattan nightclub and then taken to a Chelsea apartment, where one twin brother forcibly penetrated her while the other held her down. She said they then switched places and the assault continued, the suit says.

As the complaints made the rounds on social media, comment threads on Reddit and Instagram filled with messages from other women who said they had also been victimized, with many encouraging those with similar stories to speak out.

“Plaintiff is not and was not the only victim of the twins’ heinous acts,” the complaint alleging the Hamptons assault states. “For years, defendants Alon and Oren engaged in a similar pattern of schemes, actions and behavior toward various women.”

The second complaint contains similar wording.

Oren and Alon have until August 19 to respond to the initial complaints in court; Oren, Tal and Alon have until July 18 to respond to the lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The women’s attorney said he was not aware of any ongoing criminal investigations. The Times reached out to law enforcement in Southampton and New York City to ask if anyone had filed a police report, but did not receive an immediate response.

The emergence of the allegations came as a shock to experienced real estate professionals, with several brokers, appraisers and public relations staff telling the Times that Official, which is only two years old, would have a hard time recovering from the scandal in such a competitive environment.

“It seems ironic that Official, known for marketing luxury properties in New York, Miami and elsewhere, could find it nearly impossible to maintain control of its own brand,” said Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive of appraisal firm Miller Samuel. “If the company cannot weather the flood of news about a partner’s allegedly shocking behavior, the gap will be temporary. There is too much money at stake for the industry to move on quickly without it.”

In an interview on Sunday, Ms. Oge said her company would continue to develop.

“The confusion or misunderstanding that Official is somehow inextricably linked to a person, whether it’s me or Oren or anyone else, is just wrong,” she said. “Official is not Oren Alexander.”