Alexander Brothers' Final Hearing Gets HEATED! Judge Pushes Back as LIFE Sentences Loom

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Disgraced former real estate moguls Tal Oren and alone Alexander or better known as the Alexander brothers were in federal court on Monday for their last hearing before sentencing in their federal sex trafficking case now if you do not follow my reporting on this or if you're new here I suggest you go to my playlist on this channel the Alexander brothers and you watch the last video because in that video I really get into detail about what Monday's arguments were really about in terms of sentencing enhancements and how each brother has a criminal offense level or really each federal convicted inmate they have a or defendant they have a criminal offense level and if the judge finds that these sentencing enhancements are valid this will uh bump up their criminal offense level and essentially give them a longer time in prison and now at this point I heard them say in court at least for Oren Alexander that his criminal offense level was 43 which is the highest which results to uh life in prison regardless um and a few moments during during the the hearing and I'll I'll go back I'm kind of skipping ahead Judge Valerie Caproni had said during the defense's arguments about certain things she was like okay fine I'll give you this one but it really doesn't matter in terms of what I'm already thinking for sentencing so she kind of said a few times like okay sure you win here but it doesn't matter it doesn't matter for sentencing so I was like whoa I also spoke to one of the court guards or the court officials in in the courtroom and they said they saw an offender at I think it was a criminal offense level of 35 and this was I think a defendant in a narcotics case and that defendant on a criminal offense level of 35 was sentenced to something like 30 plus years in prison so if you are out of 43 the chances are you're you're probably getting life in prison but you know we'll see we'll see what happens sentencing is is October 27th that's next Monday but I do know that prosecutors are seeking life and the defense is saying well we want more like 15 years which is essentially the uh minimum amount of time that you can get for federal sex trafficking so I want to just uh start first and foremost here I'll give you just sort of the the mood or the atmosphere in the courtroom uh when the brothers walked out tall Alexander he looks kind of rough he had a beard definitely looked a lot more tired than I had seen in the past and Oren Alexander he started wearing a yarmulke which was new to me um I attended most of the trial I didn't see him wear a yarmulke um I saw one today so uh just throwing it out there and alone Alexander he looked you know pretty much the same maybe he was a little bit balder had more of like a bald spot there but Valerie Caproni the judge judge Caproni was kind of like oh yay the bands all back together kind of made some jokes and then she quickly shifted her mood where she was not happy with the defense she was basically like I am not amused with all of the arguments the defense has made on every single enhancement here you know between uh this and then the pre-sentencing report and whatever she's like it seems like you're just throwing everything against the wall to to see what sticks here so she was just like I want to get through this I don't want to be here all day it turns out we were actually there for almost two hours it it took a lot longer than than I had planned for uh on Monday but Marc Agnifilo started off and he brought this kind of this chart up to the judge and to the government and I noticed I mean Marc Agnifilo I just I have to say he is such a likable defense attorney even the government was kind of looking at his chart and smiling along and and I I just you know I've sat through multiple trials or or hearings whatever you want to call it with Marc Agnifilo where he is defending some pretty bad dudes and you just cannot help but but like this guy uh as an attorney so anyway um he's got this chart and he's he's challenging the government sentencing uh guideline calculations arguing that prosecutors were interpreting the conspiracy liability here just too broadly and uh they were attempting to incorporate allegations of misconduct that had not been established by the jury's verdict in the trial and Agnifilo maintained throughout his argument that the jury's findings here or I guess their their guilty findings they centered on specific sexual acts and he argued that the government was just improperly using those findings to support vague or larger sex trafficking enhancements so um yeah and that was also again just the the crux of all of the arguments and he also kind of said you know the the prosecution is is really trying to essentially introduce alleged other bad acts into the calculations here but the judge pushed back and she's like so um i just want to remind you here that this this conduct that they're going to be sentencing on sentenced on it's not just expressly established by a jury's verdict so um i just want to remind you of that and then she said as i i mentioned earlier she said and by the way uh this type of enhancement it's going to have very very little impact on my sentencing suggestion anyway and again she said that multiple times where i'll give it to you but it's going to have no impact so i'm like thinking to myself wow she's she's already decided life and and that's that's my opinion um next the the enhancement of the physical restraint of a victim was argued and this was argued by uh jackie persick she is one of the attorneys representing alone alexander and she was arguing that this enhancement should not apply and then she gives an example um to an incident involving a woman who had testified and they they brought up the testimony here who testified that she was locked inside of a bathroom door but persick was saying that the bathroom door was locked from the inside so she could get out you know at any moment and that really shouldn't count as a restraint and the government kind of argued and pushed back and said well she testified and and just forgive me that that her head was like pushed into towels when she was being assaulted so that should be the restraint of a victim and also i had mentioned this before but the defense their their overall view of this was that the brothers would be sentenced on already convicted or sentenced conduct so they would be sentenced twice essentially or punished twice um that was a big crux of their argument and also they cited uh a case the united states versus taylor which involved victims being forced into a closet by a defendant during a robbery pretending to like possess a gun you know underneath his jacket and apparently the restraint enhancement was not met for that case so the defense was really pushing that through and then the government was like well actually we don't even know if there was a lock on the closet door in that case united states versus taylor or not so they argued uh against that and then another uh argument centered around the vulnerable victim enhancement which mark agnifilo argued against this and and this is centered around allegations that a minor victim had been drugged and agnifilo was arguing that the enhancement concerned the alleged offense of being drugged or drugging a victim um rather than a particular characteristic of the victim um caproni wasn't having it she just was like what are you talking about drugging someone makes it easier to sexually assault them so that makes them a vulnerable victim um and and during this argument also mark agnifilo kind of made more of a broader statement here and he kind of said you know our argument and and we've argued this throughout the course of the trial is that the brothers they've been tried on sex trafficking charges but they've effectively been convicted uh in what he characterized as a federal rape case and when he said this alone alexander was sitting back in his chair and he was like mm-hmm like he was very much in agreement with this um so then uh tall alexander's attorney deanna paul she challenged a two-level enhancement using uh or about the use of a computer and there's kind of two parts to this because she she brought something up in his pre-sentencing report that involved this as well but this two-level enhancement in particular the use of a computer it was based on a text message sent by matt litman who she says you know he wasn't even charged as a co-conspirator and these enhancements these are for tal and alone i believe i could be wrong it could be i know that it's tall i just i couldn't find in my notes if it was orin or alone so it's tall and one of his brothers and she was like they didn't send this text message they did not uh you know force matt litman to send it they didn't indicate that you know they they had facilitated it in any way so she's like i just strongly argue against this enhancement uh for a text that they had nothing to do with and the government had just countered that the enhancement was based on conduct related to the offense not necessarily who personally sent the communication and they argued that the brothers knew litman uh and he was helping recruit women because he was some kind of party promoter and judge caproni said that she would uh take the issue under advisement and i just want to point out that judge caproni she flat out rejected agnifolo's argument about the vulnerable victim enhancement and she also rejected his argument on the conspiracy liability enhancement as well but yes this one she said i'll take the issue under advisement and i also just want to point out that several moments during this two-hour hearing essentially judge caproni was visibly frustrated with the defense where she was like you know just get to the point and you're arguing against you know evidence in the trial that was already proven you're you're you know she was just she kind of blew up at them a bunch of times and also i will just say her body language in general with the defense as soon as agnifolo started his arguments she was kind of like this in her hand which just was like oh boy she she already knows she already knows what she's gonna she's gonna sentence the brothers as i've mentioned however i think it's important for defense attorneys to get all of this on the record for their future appeals um okay oh so just back to the computer uh with deanna paul now going to the pre-sentencing report she voiced concerns about a video on a computer and this is associated with tall because this this computer this video it was found at tall's apartment now there is a minor on this video and she argued that there was no evidence that tall had viewed the video and she warned that information could create problems with his future future classification by the bureau of prisons so she was kind of asking for a clarifying footnote here on the pre-sentencing report i mean what i took from that is tall could be kind of considered you know someone that messes with with kids if anything about c sam or a video with a minor you know is is on his report that could get out and that would be very bad for him and uh the judge did say that she would add a clarifying footnote to his pre-sentencing report and then uh the hearing really turned to the victim impact statements and uh tani garagos mark garagos's daughter uh one of the attorneys for orrin alexander she objected to several women being permitted to address the court because their allegations were not included in the indictment they had not testified at trial and as she states they were not victims of a federal crime and judge caproni had confirmed that she received all of the the women's written statements and she denied the defense's request to strike all of them from the record but both tani garagos and diana paul they raised specific concerns about just specific individuals and diana paul specifically raised a concern about a woman that she said was actually in the courtroom reportedly and said that this woman had a civil suit out and she had provided four different sworn accounts uh as you know the plaintiff and a civil case that she had opened but also previous interviews with the fbi and the government and she also noted that this woman was a subject in an upcoming peacock documentary in in actually uh that that would be airing i believe the night before sentencing so um and then judge caproni was like well i know exactly which victim impact statement you're talking about and this is essentially just an ex of talls who's going to say he's a really bad guy and caproni's like and i don't really think that's you know anything out of character or anything that we haven't heard before so you know kind of said i'll take it under advisement but at this point i think she was just kind of going along with everything um oh then she also encouraged the prosecutors and the defense attorneys to confer privately about possible restitution for at least some of the women the defense has maintained that restitution should not be awarded because the underlying claims had not been submitted to the jury but then i would say sort of the end of the hearing and i think one of the more notable exchanges here involved designation where the brothers would serve their prison sentences now caproni i had said before during my last video i was like i don't really know why she would want them separated i don't i don't see why um and she had said that everything she heard in the trial would indicate that the brothers are very poor influences on one another and she went as far to say that she believes possibly that society would be better off if they were all housed in separate federal prisons now with that being said the defense specifically howard strevnik who represents alone he made a point to say well none of the uh none of this this conduct has occurred after 2017 there's been no allegations after 2017 basically saying like this this shouldn't be a concern at this point because the brothers have since gotten married had kids whatever and uh caproni she wasn't buying it she did not care and she had said like you know oh you want me to believe that there's no other women after 2017 and he was like well none came forward and then she was like women come forward for different reasons at different times and he was just kind of like okay well i just think it's crazy then that none came forward after 2017 and still haven't but okay and he also added uh that this would have a profound effect on the brothers mental health if they weren't housed together and she said yeah i saw that but i she said something along the lines of uh i i am unmoved and also i didn't realize this before but although it makes sense identical twins are not supposed to be housed together in in prison um and uh alone and oren they are fraternal twins so the attorneys wanted to make that clear and they apparently cited that the mdc had no issue with that and caproni was like well i don't know i look at them and i can't really tell a difference so you know that's just me but then she she said i just want to remind everybody though it's not up to me where they go i can just make a recommendation but this is essentially up to the bureau of prisons and then she went over what is going to happen during the sentencing hearing um where she just said it's going to be let me see it's going to be uh the victims that speak first then the government and then the defense and she said that the defense had asked for 90 minutes each per brother she was hoping for 60 minutes each but said she will allot the full time as long as they don't repeat themselves over and over again so okay so that is basically it i will have a comprehensive write-up in the episode notes and if any of this was confusing like i said go to my previous video because i really lay out the uh enhancements and the guidelines and kind of what happens when they are um added on so i again the sentencing hearing is going to be a long day i should just prepare to clear the whole day ahead of time so i will do that so i can bring you um the best and most comprehensive coverage. All right, guys, thanks for being here. I'm Lauren Conlin.