The second week of the Alexander brothers’ intercourse trafficking trial resumed testimony on the first video of an alleged attack presented in the case, exhibiting Oren Alexander having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl who says she had no reminiscence of the encounter or recording earlier than she was contacted by the federal government.
The video and two witnesses that led off the week’s proceedings add to the rising listing of proof and ladies introduced to the court docket by prosecutors alleging brothers Oren, Alon and Tal labored collectively in a conspiracy to lure, incapacitate and assault ladies. The brothers have pleaded not responsible and deny the allegations.
Attorneys for the brothers on Monday morning contended with potential problems from outdoors the courtroom, requesting a mistrial following reporting that the brothers have been named within the DOJ’s newest tranche of information associated to the Jeffrey Epstein case. After questioning particular person jury members on whether or not they had been made conscious of something concerning the Alexander brothers outdoors of the courtroom, which the entire jurors denied, Decide Valerie Caproni denied the request.
Monday’s proceedings picked again up on testimony from a girl seen in a video that prosecutors have cited as the idea of Oren’s sexual exploitation of a minor charge. The file, discovered on a backup of Oren’s pc, was despatched the identical evening it was captured.
A girl testifying beneath the pseudonym Amelia Rosen advised the court docket that she was contacted by the federal government with a video of the alleged rape, which she had no recollection of and had by no means seen. The video was proven privately to particular person members of the jury.
She described working as a mannequin when she was 17 years previous, together with taking cocaine and different medicine and figuring out promoters who invited fashions to dinners and different occasions. Rosen, who was born in what was then the united statesS.R. and is now Ukraine, emigrated to the U.S. when she was 14 years previous.
“It was very painful and upsetting and really complicated for me to see the issues within the video,” she stated, calling it “one of many hardest moments of my life.”
The video, she stated, confirmed two males having intercourse along with her. “I’m not in an alert state. I look beneath the affect and I’m not current,” she stated.
Marc Agnifilo, an legal professional for Oren, briefly cross-examined Rosen, first confirming the video was captured two months shy of her 18th birthday. He additionally pressed her on the identities of promoters she got here into contact with on the time, who labored with nightclubs and would take fashions to dinner in change for his or her attendance at sure nightlife spots.
One other weekend within the Hamptons allegedly gone fallacious
Monday additionally noticed testimony from a girl testifying beneath the pseudonym Bela Koval, who alleges she was raped by Oren in 2016.
Koval testified that she was drugged and raped by Oren throughout a weekend within the Hamptons in the summertime of 2016. Koval, then 23 years previous, matched with Alon on the relationship app Raya and her good friend matched with Oren. By her good friend, the brothers invited them to an all-expenses-paid journey to the Hamptons over Labor Day weekend, Koval stated, with a non-public chef, boat journeys and extra. She and her good friend have been promised a non-public bed room.
Koval, who had recovered from a significant belly surgical procedure about eight to 9 months earlier, stated she was trying ahead to the journey. “I had simply had surgical procedure, I used to be not too long ago single. I needed to discover the Hamptons for the primary time,” she stated.
The brothers — Oren, Tal and Alon — “appeared genuinely blissful for us to be there,” Koval stated about their arrival on the Hamptons home, which seems to be the same home described in testimony delivered final week by a girl who says she was raped by Tal in 2014.
On the second day of the journey, the brothers advised the ladies, together with others, to put on swimsuits for a celebration later that day. However when different visitors, together with shoppers of the Alexanders, started arriving, Koval stated they have been dressed extra formally than she anticipated, so she become a pink jumpsuit. In some unspecified time in the future, Oren got here as much as her and gave her a drink. She took just a few sips, however prevented ingesting extra due to her surgical procedure and subsequent Crohn’s illness prognosis.
Koval then described feeling like a change went off and never feeling like herself. She started to lose management of her physique and struggled to make it inside the home, the place she deliberate to go straight to her bed room. “By no means in my life” had she felt like that, she stated. That’s when Alon noticed her and pulled her into one other bed room, the place she laid down.
“I closed my eyes and I used to be awoken to the door opening and Oren strolling into the room. That is after I realized that I had misplaced the flexibility to maneuver my legs and limbs,” she stated. “My thoughts, I used to be totally awake and conscious. I used to be in a position to communicate, nevertheless it was very faint.”
She stated that Oren pulled out a condom, received on high of her, pinned her down and raped her. “He had this brooding power, nearly like anger. He didn’t say a single phrase to me,” she stated, including that she wakened the subsequent day in the identical bed room.
Koval stated she and her good friend felt trapped and needed to keep the day after the alleged rape. “It felt like I used to be pressured to be round the one who raped me.” They have been in a position to go away the home with out the Alexanders noticing the subsequent day, due to a good friend of a good friend.
Prosecutors additionally questioned Koval on inconsistencies within the story she initially shared with them and her testimony, together with what she was carrying on the time of the assault and whether or not she joined the Alexanders and others on a ship the next day.
Learn extra
Who’s who in the courtroom at the Alexanders’ trial
Alexander brothers’ names surface in Epstein files
“It was pure control”: Hamptons accuser testifies in Alexanders’ sex trafficking trial
