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Attorneys for a woman alleging she was sexually assaulted in Aspen by two celebrity real estate brokers are objecting to the brothers’ attempt to pause the lawsuit’s proceedings until the criminal charges against them are resolved.
A lawsuit against brothers Alon and Oren Alexander alleges they sexually assaulted a 17-year-old female visiting Aspen for the Winter X Games in 2017.
The suit was filed Dec. 30 in the U.S. District Court of Colorado in Denver and came after the brothers were indicted federally Dec. 10 on counts related to conspiring to commit sex trafficking and rape from 2010 to 2021. A third brother, Tal, also was indicted; he is not a defendant in the suit concerning the Aspen allegations.
The brothers, who were arrested Dec. 11 in Florida, are in pre-trial custody with no bail in New York at the Metropolitan Detention Center, according to court documents.
They have pleaded not guilty to all of the criminal charges and face a minimum sentence of 15 years up to life imprisonment if convicted; their trial is scheduled to start Jan. 5, 2026.
In the meantime, they have not responded to the lawsuit regarding the Aspen allegations that started in a downtown nightclub and finished in a downtown hotel. Their lawyers are asking the court to pause proceedings in the lawsuit so that they are not required to answer the accusations until 21 days after the criminal case is resolved. The court also should suspend the civil proceedings because the defense cannot participate in the discovery process and depositions that could compromise the criminal defense, they argued.
“The overwhelming public interest is to provide all parties with a fair trial,” said a May 16 filing by the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan and Foreman PC. “The public interest is not served by rushing to resolve a litigant’s eight-year-old claims brought only after the Defendants are indicted and unable to meaningfully respond.”
The filing argues the lawsuit’s allegations “substantially mirror the indictment” and hamstring the defense because they can’t formally reply to the lawsuit with a criminal case pending that potentially could add the woman, a resident of Pennsylvania, as a victim.
The filing adds that “with their criminal trial only months away, Defendants will be forced to expend substantial financial, personal, and emotional resources to defend claims made eight years late.”
The plaintiff’s attorneys, with Leventhal Puga Braley PC in Denver, argued in a Friday pleading that, essentially, justice can’t wait.
Criminal trials often are delayed and guilty verdicts appealed, and the woman making the accusations in the lawsuit is not part of the federal government’s criminal case, the pleading argues. Pausing the proceedings in the lawsuit would only benefit the Alexander brothers, the filing says.
The woman is suing under the Colorado Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, which allows minors who were victims of sexual misconduct occurring after Jan. 1, 1960, and before Jan. 1, 2022, to bring legal action before Jan. 1, 2025.
Before the enactment of the law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2022, the statute of limitations capped legal action to six years after the victim’s 18th birthday.
“Plaintiff was 17 years old at the time Defendants preyed on her and raped her in January 2017. Because she was a minor at that time, her statute of limitations did not begin to run until February 2017 when she turned 18 and would not expire until February 2023” under older Colorado law, the May 30 filing says.
The suit seeks a jury trial and makes two claims of sexual assault against Alon Alexander and a single claim of civil conspiracy against the twins.
The suit alleges: “Prior to January 2017, Defendants Alon Alexander and Oren Alexander worked together in concert to sexually assault vulnerable, intoxicated/drugged and/or underage women starting when they were in high school in Miami, Florida. … Over the years preceding 2017, many women reported that they had blacked out after being with Defendants and believed that they had been drugged, and many claimed they had been raped.”
In the spring of 2024, the Alexander twins started a real estate office — as part of their “Official” brand they launched in 2022 after leaving Douglas Elliman Real Estate — on East Durant Avenue. It had closed it by the summer.
Local help for victims of sexual and domestic abuse is available by calling Response at 970-925-7233 and Advocate Safehouse Project in Glenwood Springs at 970-945-2632.