The first witness to testify on Tuesday at the sex trafficking trial for real estate brokers Alon, Tal and Oren Alexander told a jury that she met two of the wealthy brothers on a once-exciting summer 2012 night that went horribly wrong after one of them raped her.
The witness, who went by the pseudonym Katie Moore, said she met Alon and Tal Alexander after a co-worker was invited by Tal to join them at Zac Efron’s apartment in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District and watch an NBA final game and asked her to come along.
Moore accepted because she was a fan of Efron’s and wanted to meet him, and because her co-worker was romantically interested in Tal Alexander, she said.
A request for comment to Zac Efron’s team was not immediately returned.
While watching the game, Moore said she drank alcohol and, at Tal Alexander’s offer, took a small amount of MDMA. Afterwards, the party moved to a club called Provacateur, where, Katie said, she was given a drink that was drugged.
“I have a super vivid memory of my body starting to sway,” Moore said. “The experience was very different than other alcohol.”
Moore said she has no memory of leaving the club, just of Alon and Tal Alexander telling her and Ainsley it “was time to go,” and a flash of getting into a cab. When she awoke hours later, she said she was naked on Alon Alexander’s bed. She tried to get up multiple times, yet Alon Alexander kept pushing her back down, she said. When she finally managed to get up, Moore says she told Alon Alexander: “I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“His response was to laugh in my face and say, ‘You already did,’” Moore said. “It was incredibly overwhelming. That was the moment everything had come crashing down.”
She said he then proceeded to rape her again for a prolonged period of time despite her consistently saying no and crying. He also had a conversation with his brother, Tal Alexander, who nonchalantly walked into the room in the middle of the alleged rape.
“There was no acknowledgement of what was happening on the bed,” Moore said. “It was so weird how normal it seemed between them.”
When Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison Smyser of the Southern District of New York asked why she didn’t come forward immediately after the alleged rape took place, the witness said she found a blog post online saying Alon and Oren Alexander had been accused of rape in the past and found not guilty at trial.
Moore realized the blog post was fake later on; the Alexanders have never been charged or tried before, but it influenced her decision not to come forward in 2012: if they had gotten off in the past, she explained, how difficult would it be to successfully bring a case against them now, that they were older, wealthy and had successful careers?
Speaking about the details of the article in court was a point of high contention between the parties. Defense attorneys argued that the jury hearing about an article that incorrectly said Alon and Oren Alexander had been charged with rape in the past would prejudice the jury against the brothers. U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni overruled their objections, saying that, because the defense was attempting to diminish the credibility of the victims by questioning why they didn’t come forward sooner, the fact that the article contributed to Moore’s decision not to come forward made it relevant in that context.
Moore also cited fear of retaliation and a fear that if she came forward, her life could be dictated or defined by making the allegation as reasons why she elected not to press charges in 2012.
Howard Strebnick, a defense attorney for Alon Alexander, and Alex Khan, a defense attorney for Tal Alexander, cross-examined Moore. Strebnick’s roughly four hours of cross-examination involved him attempting to nail down the timeline of the night and the timeline of when Moore shared details of the night with others, how much Moore drank and when, the details of her taking MDMA and what she had told to civil attorneys and government attorneys and when.
Moore remained composed and collected throughout the testimony, consistently providing the same story and appearing honest about which parts of the night she was and wasn’t able to remember, as well as about trying to remember specific details.
A second accuser, testifying under the pseudonym Maya Miller, took the stand in the afternoon, alleging that, after messaging intermittently with Tal Alexander over Instagram for about a year, Tal invited her to spend a weekend with him in the Hamptons in August 2014.
She testified that Tal Alexander promised to pay for flights for her and her friend from California to New York to spend a weekend in the Hamptons with him. He didn’t pay her back for those flights, Miller said, but the weekend started as an incredible experience, full of paid-for experiences she said she wouldn’t have been able to afford herself, then 23 years old.
After a night where she believed her friend was drugged after drinking half a glass of wine at the house they were staying at, Miller decided she and her friend should leave. When Tal Alexander found out she was attempting to leave the next morning, however, Miller said Tal Alexander attacked her and forced her to into a shower, where he bent her over and raped her.
“I was so scared,” Miller said. “I was bawling…I felt gutted. I felt absolutely horrible.”
She said the rape caused her to bleed vaginally for two days.
The defense is expected to conduct their cross-examination of Miller on Thursday.
