Sex crime trial set for friend of Alexander brothers accused of pinning woman during rape

MIAMI — Jury selection is expected to begin Tuesday for the sex crime trial of Ohad Fisherman, the hummus entrepreneur and good friend of Miami Beach’s Alexander brothers, accused of pinning down a woman eight years ago as the twins took turns raping her.

Fisherman, 39, who New York magazine once dubbed the “hummus hunk,” will stand trial alone as twins Oren and Alon Alexander remain detained in a Brooklyn federal detention center awaiting trial on separate rape and sex- trafficking charges.

Fisherman is facing a single count of sexual battery by multiple perpetrators. Newly married, he’s been out of jail on bond without an ankle monitor since his December arrest. He was in Japan celebrating his honeymoon when local police and federal agents swarmed the Miami Beach homes of the 38-year-old twins and their brother Tal Alexander, 39, and took them into custody.

Fisherman was taken into custody a week later and charged with the single count. After Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Lody Jean learned more information about the charges, Fisherman was released on bond and the three Alexander brothers were transported to New York on the federal counts.

The incident involving Fisherman and the twins is alleged to have taken place on New Year’s Eve 2016 in an expensive Miami Beach hi-rise on Collins Avenue owned by Alon.

Feds not sharing cellphone data

The accused say they are innocent of the charges in a case that has made international headlines and that has been marred — on both sides — by the federal government’s unwillingness to share electronic data from cellphones and computers seized during the December arrests.

Late last week, Fisherman’s attorneys filed a motion of alibi with the court, arguing their client wasn’t in the apartment when the woman claims she was raped; defense attorneys say Fisherman’s whereabouts could be proven if the feds turned over “critical” electronic evidence.

Defense attorneys have repeatedly asked for it during the seven months of hearings leading to the trial. Judge Jean has ordered it be handed over. And state prosecutors led by Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney and sex crimes chief Natalie Snyder, have repeatedly said federal prosecutors in New York have refused to share the evidence — or even say if they have it.

Specifically at issue: Metadata from a drone and cellphones that could show if Fisherman was somewhere other than the Collins Avenue apartment during the 73-minute window the woman’s Uber receipts show she was at Alon’s condominium on New Year’s Eve 2016.

Drone image

Eight years ago, Fisherman posted to social media what he said was a picture from a drone owned by one of the Alexander brothers. It showed a group of people on a boat on Biscayne Bay and the picture was purportedly taken at 5:46 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2016.

Uber receipts from the woman who says she was held down by Fisherman and raped by the twins shows she arrived at the condo at 6:13 p.m. that evening and left at 7:26 p.m.

The picture is fuzzy and even when blown up it’s not clear if Fisherman is aboard the vessel. The woman accusing the trio of rape also said she believes the incident was videotaped on a cellphone by one of the brothers. But without the actual metadata showing time and date — and anything else it might have collected — defense attorney Jeffrey Sloman said a jury would simply have to take his client’s word for it about time and place.

“Theoretically, it can be any day of the year,” Sloman said. “It’s crucial to prove that it was that date and on that time. Without it, you can’t definitively prove it.”

Prosecutors: Feds won’t share information

Snyder, the sex crimes expert at the state attorney’s office, has told Judge Jean several times that federal prosecutors with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York — who are trying the federal case — have refused to share potential evidence.

In June, Snyder showed the court a memo from the New York federal prosecutors saying they wouldn’t release any information, to some degree because of Florida’s public records laws.

Oren Alexander has also been charged with two other sexual assaults on Miami Beach and the three brothers are awaiting trial in federal court on sexual assault and sex trafficking charges. State and federal prosecutors say the Alexander brothers used their fame and wealth to lure women to their Miami Beach and New York apartments and on trips to mostly glamorous cities, even out of the country.

Prosecutors contend the women were often drugged before they were raped. Dozens of women have filed civil cases in Florida and New York.

Oren and Tal gained wealth and shot to fame in brokering some of the most expensive residential sales in Florida and New York. Alon remains an executive with the family-run security business, Kent Security.

Alon, Oren and Tal have asked a federal judge to dismiss their indictment because they never paid the women who accused the brothers of sexually assaulting them. Their legal teams have argued that while the brothers may be accused of luring the women to their apartments, hotels and other places in the United States and Mexico while promising to cover their expenses, “the alleged victims did not provide sex ‘on account of’ those promises, as the statute requires.”

Pictures lured woman to Miami Beach hi-rise: woman

Prior to the December arrests, the woman told police during the afternoon the day the rape occurred, she was with friends in a Miami Beach hotel when she received a text from Alon, whom she had previously met in New York. She said he invited her to a barbecue at his apartment and enticed her there with texts of pictures of people on a balcony having a good time.

When she got there, she told police, Alon greeted her in the lobby and the two took an elevator directly up to his apartment. Once upstairs, she realized there was no party. She said the twins and Fisherman led her to a bedroom where she sat on a foot rest when Fisherman “came from behind and held her shoulders” as the twins discussed who would go first.

Then, the woman told police, the Alexander brothers removed her shorts and bathing suit bottom and took turns raping her. She said they wore condoms and that she was raped even though she told them “no” twice. She later altered her testimony in a deposition, saying Fisherman only held her down while Oren raped her.