the evidence<\/a> and set aside the emotional heft of nearly a dozen women who testified that one or more of the Alexander brothers sexually assaulted them. The brothers have pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\nMarc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, said the brothers\u2019 playboy lifestyle and unsentimental pursuit of sex \u201churt a lot of people\u2019s feelings,\u201d leaving some women heartbroken and upset. That\u2019s the real reason they\u2019re on trial, he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot because they\u2019re rapists. Not because they drug women. But because they have a certain combination of characteristics that have made lots of people angry with them,\u201d said Agnifilo, one of three defense lawyers to deliver a closing argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re reaching out. Why? Because they are pursuing women. They\u2019re pursuing women across the board,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s what the evidence shows. They\u2019re not drugging them, they\u2019re not raping them, but they\u2019re certainly pursuing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also Thursday, Tracy Tutor, a star of \u201cMillion Dollar Listing Los Angeles\u201d on Bravo, became the latest woman to sue over alleged sexual misconduct by the brothers. She alleges Oren Alexander drugged and assaulted her in a restaurant bathroom while she was in New York City for a real estate event.<\/p>\n
Jason Goldman, a lawyer representing Oren Alexander in civil litigation, said Tutor and her attorneys \u201chave timed the filing of this salacious and demonstrably false lawsuit for maximum media impact.\u201d Her allegations, he said, are more than a decade old and have already been aired publicly.<\/p>\n
Agnifilo, fresh off winning acquittals on the most serious charges at hip-hop mogul Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs\u2019 sex trafficking trial last summer, brought his everyman courtroom demeanor to his closing argument in the Alexander brothers case.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes courage to acquit. It does,\u201d he told the jury of six men and six women. \u201cAnd I want you guys to know that that\u2019s what you should do here. You should have that courage.”<\/p>\n
Deanna Paul, a lawyer for Tal Alexander, argued that prosecutors had failed to provide adequate evidence to support the charges.<\/p>\n
“You can\u2019t build a house if you don\u2019t have any bricks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Agnifilo and Paul both attacked the prosecution’s efforts to tie the brothers to a blog that the government said encouraged drugging women and raping them.<\/p>\n
Agnifilo acknowledged the blog was \u201chorrific\u201d but said there was no evidence that the Alexander brothers wrote any of the posts that prosecutors cited. The government was using them to make the brothers look bad, he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they tasteless? They\u2019re beyond tasteless. They\u2019re shocking. They\u2019re awful,\u201d Agnifilo said. \u201cI submit to you it does not help you. It doesn\u2019t help you make your decision. It doesn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is zero proof that any of the Alexander brothers ever wrote any of those blog posts, and there is not one shred of evidence that Tal even knew it existed,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is trying to tie Tal to words that he didn\u2019t write, on a blog he didn\u2019t know existed, to prove a conspiracy that he was not a part of,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
In a rebuttal argument on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa noted that the blog was found on a computer hard drive in Tal Alexander’s apartment and followed the defendants’ \u201cplaybook and goals,\u201d including their justifications for rape under a post titled \u201cIt’s not rape if ….\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the blog post reflected how the brothers justified rapes for over a decade after 2008 by concluding that it was not rape if women were left too scared or humiliated to report it to authorities or if the woman had a crush on one of the brothers first or if they couldn’t remember every detail of the night or if drugs left them with memory gaps and unable to fight back.<\/p>\n
She said the defense arguments were \u201call nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a close case,\u201d Espinosa said, urging guilty verdicts.<\/p>\n
She said the brothers hadn’t counted on 11 women \u201ccoming forward in an avalanche of evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Espinosa noted how defense lawyers highlighted isolated snippets of testimony \u201ctrying to get you to avoid the bigger picture.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cDefendants\u2019 arguments are meant to confuse and distract you,\u201d she said. \u201cThat bigger picture is more important.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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