Much to the chagrin of their defense attorneys, accused sex traffickers, former real estate brokers and brothers Alon, Oren and Tal Alexander appeared in the U.S. Justice Department’s most recent release of Epstein files this past weekend.
While U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni quashed the idea of granting the defense a mistrial over the brothers’ names appearing in the files, she issued an order late Monday barring the release of additional Epstein “material” with their names on it.
“[T]he United States must not release any document or material from the purported ‘Epstein Files’ that mentions or references any of the above-listed Defendants [Alon, Oren and Tal Alexander], explicitly or implicitly, before a jury verdict has been rendered in this case,” Caproni’s order says.
Caproni ordered U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton to sign off on having notified U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi about her order, as well as the U.S. deputy attorney general and U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
The Alexander brothers, who are currently on trial facing 12 counts of sex trafficking and sexual assault, were mentioned in the recently released files via an allegation from a woman who said, as a teenage model, she attended eight parties at late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein’s New York residence, at which she saw all three of the brothers.
She was sexually assaulted by Epstein at one of those parties, the file says; at another, Alon and Oren Alexander “lured” her and her friend upstairs (though, she said, they escaped back downstairs). The woman alleges that Oren Alexander raped her best friend and Tal Alexander raped a 14-year-old girl in Epstein’s home.
Marc Agnifilo, one of Alon Alexander’s defense attorneys, expressed his concern to Caproni that the Alexanders’ appearance in the files may have found its way into jurors’ social media feeds — something he said could bias the jury against the brothers.
Without the jury in the room, he said his concern arose because he was able to find information on the brothers’ appearance in the Epstein files by searching on his daughter’s social media accounts.
Caproni expressed skepticism that jurors would have come across a post informing them the Alexanders were mentioned in the Epstein files, saying people were focused on well-known names like the Clintons, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. She also noted Agnifilo found that information on social media after searching for it — something jurors are explicitly instructed not to do.
However, she agreed to Agnifilo’s request to call each juror into the courtroom individually Monday afternoon to ask whether they had been exposed to “anything” about the Alexanders outside of the evidence they heard in court since the trial started last week.
All answered no, though one mentioned she’d read an article about alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione, who was represented by someone with a “similar” name to Agnifilo.
Caproni told the juror that Agnifilo and his wife, Karen Agnifilo, represent Mangione, and that she was “free to read as much as [she] wants about the Mangione case.”
U.S. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa told the court the Epstein files containing the Alexanders’ names had been “inadvertently released,” according to the New York Times.
The Alexanders’ trial is expected to last until late February or early March in Manhattan federal court.
