Alexander brothers, friend, seek dismissal of sex crime case, say state hiding evidence
Ohad Fisherman, a 39-year-old friend of twins Oren and Alon Alexander, is accused of pinning a woman down at a Miami Beach apartment on New Year's Eve 2016, while the brothers took turns raping her. His attorneys also say his accuser contradicted her original statement about Fisherman to police last year when she said during a deposition last month that she wasn't held down during the assault.
Oren and Alon — one who gained wealth and shot to fame as a high-end real estate executive, the other in the family's security business — are also named in the dismissal motion. But the duo are not expected to return to Miami in time for a trial that could begin before the end of the month.
That's because on top of the state charges, they're also facing a host of weighty federal sex crime charges including sex trafficking and are jailed in Brooklyn, New York. Oren has also been charged by Miami-Dade state prosecutors with two other sexual assaults on Miami Beach.
READ MORE: She sued the Alexander brothers for rapes. Would she have to use her name?
In the motion filed before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Lody Jean, Fisherman's attorneys say the state had the opportunity during the Alexander brothers' Miami Beach arrest in December to secure the evidence that is now under the control of federal prosecutors. And, they say, if federal prosecutors in New York are unwilling to share the evidence, the case should be dismissed.
'The sovereign district of New York is notorious for not collaborating with other prosecutors' offices,' said Fisherman defense attorney Jeffrey Sloman, who once served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. 'The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office is learning this lesson the hard way.'
Ed Griffith, spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, said the state will address the motion during Monday's hearing.
Jean ruled in a separate earlier order that the investigations into the alleged sex crimes by Miami Beach Police and federal prosecutors were separate and that the feds weren't obligated to turn over the potential evidence.
In a joint statement, Alexander brothers' defense attorneys Eddie O'Donnell IV and Joel Denaro called the arrest of their clients a publicity stunt and said they're trying to get them released to stand trial in state court.
'The [Miami-Dade] prosecutors have used the New York federal government to shield us from getting our clients' electronics and getting them to trial,' the attorneys said. 'They're now using the accuser's attorneys to shield us from seeing the accuser's phones. The jury will be scratching their heads as to how these charges were brought.'
The 33-page motion filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court by Fisherman defense attorney Juan Michelen says the trio's constitutional rights were violated by state prosecutors who have purposely withheld video evidence and meta data from cellphones that could exonerate them.
The motion says that the woman who says she was raped at a luxurious Miami Beach apartment on New Year's Eve 2016, and who is referred to as M.W. in court documents, told police in her original statement that she believed the brothers videotaped the incident.
Defense attorneys are also seeking video from a boat excursion in South Florida early in the evening that they believe was taken the same night that the woman says she was raped.
State prosecutors have said in court they they don't have access to the video, which defense attorneys say could show the trio was somewhere else at the time of the alleged sexual assault.
Michelen says in the motion that the three men have been 'denied due process.'
The twins, 37, were rounded up from their Miami Beach homes in December by police and federal agents and charged with three sexual assaults and rape in Miami Beach along with the federal counts. Also arrested and charged that day was their 38-year-old brother Tal Alexander, who is only facing the federal charges.
Miami-Dade state prosecutors have accused Fisherman — anointed the 'hummus hunk' by a New York magazine for his foray into the chick pea industry — of only taking part in a single assault on Miami Beach and have not accused him of penetration. He was released on bond not long after his arrest and isn't required to wear an ankle monitor.
Named in the original charging documents on Dec. 11 when the Alexander brothers were taken into custody, Fisherman turned himself in a week later after returning from his honeymoon in Japan.
State and federal prosecutors say the three Alexander brothers used their fame and wealth to lure women to their apartments or on trips around the country, even outside the U.S. Then, investigators say, the brothers often drugged the women before raping them. More than two dozen women have also filed civil lawsuits asking for millions of dollars in damages.
According to court filings, M.W. told police in October that she was at a hotel on South Beach with friends when she received a text from Alon — whom she had met previously in New York — inviting her to a barbecue at his apartment. She said Alon also sent a picture of people having a good time on the balcony.
When she got there, Alon greeted her in the lobby and the two took an elevator directly up to his apartment. But no one was there. The woman told police she was sitting on the foot rest of the bed when Fisherman 'came from behind and held her shoulders' as the twins discussed who would go first.
Then, she said, the Alexander brothers removed her shorts and bathing suit bottom and took turns penetrating her while wearing condoms. She told police she said, 'Please, no,' twice. She told police Fisherman never penetrated her.
But under questioning from Oren's defense attorney O'Donnell, the woman made no mention of Fisherman taking part in the alleged sexual battery or even of anyone pinning her down as it was happening. At one point while discussing the possibility of one of the twins videotaping the incident on a cellphone, O'Donnell asks M.W. if it's correct that nobody held her down while she was on the bed.
'Correct,' she replies.
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