New York
Judge declines to dismiss sex trafficking case against real estate brothers
NEW YORK (AP) — A two-decade pattern of alleged sex trafficking by two luxury real estate brokers and their brother wasn’t “just men behaving badly,” a federal judge said as she left their indictment largely intact and rejected defense efforts to minimize the gravity of crimes involving dozens of women.
In an Oct. 17 opinion unsealed Wednesday, Judge Valerie E. Caproni expressed skepticism about some of the arguments defense lawyers offered as they tried to get the charges thrown out.
“As much as Defendants want to characterize the charged conduct as just men behaving badly, that is not what the Indictment charged,” she wrote.
She said the charges allege “that three grown men conspired to entice women and girls” to travel domestically and sometimes internationally to luxury hotels where they were drugged and sometimes physically restrained before they were raped or sexually assaulted.
Caproni did dismiss one attempted sex trafficking count, finding that the five-year statute of limitations had expired.
The three brothers — Oren, Tal and Alon Alexander — remain held without bail after pleading not guilty to charges in Manhattan federal court.
Oren Alexander and Tal Alexander sold high-end properties in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles before the charges were filed alleging that they used their wealth and influence to attack women from 2002 to 2021.
A defense lawyer said last week that the defense plans to show a jury that witnesses are lying at a trial scheduled for early January. The judge has said she might postpone the trial until May.
Caproni rejected defense assertions that the alleged crimes by the brothers were more like “date rape” allegations more normally prosecuted in state courts.
“That badly misrepresents the nature of the charges,” the judge wrote.
She said the allegations make clear that the alleged crimes were not “sexual assaults that serendipitously occurred” when a group of people in their 20s or 30s went on vacation, or during dates or at parties.
At a hearing last week, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said the jury will hear evidence at trial of group sex, threesomes and promiscuity.
In court papers, defense lawyers wrote that among the accusers they expect to testify at trial, they’d located evidence “that undermines nearly every aspect of the alleged victims’ narratives.”
They said they believe “that many witnesses are going to testify untruthfully on direct examination — whether it be because of their own current situation, their motive to lie for monetary gain, or their situation at the time.”
These witnesses “do not want to admit to the world that they consensually engaged in sexual activity with any of the Alexander brothers,” the lawyers said.
But Caproni wrote that she fails to understand how certain categories of information cited by the defense are likely to disprove the charges, such as proof that victims continued to contact or interact with the brothers or that they initiated contact with them.
She noted that a handful of messages cited by the defense regarding one accuser are contradicted by other messages, including one in which she expressed how she did not know how someone could so dislike her that they would harm her.
California
Ex-aide to governor indicted for alleged theft of campaign funds from ex-health secretary
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A former top aide to California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been indicted on federal charges alleging her involvement in a scheme to steal campaign money from former federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Dana Williamson was arrested and was scheduled to make her first court appearance Wednesday in Sacramento. It was not immediately clear if she had an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
The federal indictment lists four other co-conspirators. It alleges that Williamson was part of a scheme involving Sean McCluskie, who was Becerra’s chief of staff at the time of the alleged conduct.
Becerra is a former California attorney general who was appointed health secretary by former President Joe Biden. He is not implicated in the indictment.
The indictment alleges that the two took money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account and funneled it to McCluskie. It alleges they stole about $225,000 over a period of more than two years.
Williamson was Newsom’s chief of staff from late 2022 until late 2024.
California
Judge denies emergency request to keep UCLA football at Rose Bowl
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Wednesday denied a request by the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena for a temporary restraining order in their bid to keep UCLA football games at the Rose Bowl.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant said the parties had not demonstrated an emergency that would necessitate such an action. Instead, he suggested the plaintiffs’ attorneys seek discovery information about the Big Ten school’s discussions with SoFi Stadium and pursue a preliminary injunction.
Attorney Nima Mohebbi, who represents the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena, said he had filed a public records request looking for information about those discussions.
“Even though he found that there was no immediate emergency,” Mohebbi said, “he made very clear in a lot of his statements that there’s irreparable harm, that UCLA has an obligation to play at the Rose Bowl through 2044 and we’re very confident in our facts of this case. So I think all in, we feel very, very good.”
UCLA spokeswoman Mary Osako said in a statement: “As we have said, while we continue to evaluate the long-term arrangement for UCLA football home games, no decision has been made.”
UCLA has played its home games at the historic Rose Bowl since 1982. Its lease with the stadium runs through the 2043 season.
School attorneys denied in court that they had made any decisions about potential relocation.
Texas
AG suing county for helping immigrants facing deportation find legal support
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Harris County for allocating county funds to programs that help immigrants get access to legal support.
The county, home to Houston, created the Immigrant Legal Services Fund program in 2020 and last month appropriated an additional $1.3 million to keep it going. The program sends funds to five organizations that help people facing deportation get lawyers.
In a statement, Paxton called the program “evil and wicked,” as well as unconstitutional. This is the latest in a flurry of headline-grabbing lawsuits filed by Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, aimed at organizations that support immigrants.
The Harris County Jail leads the nation in ICE detainers — a request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to hold a person for deportation — as federal and state immigration enforcement has kicked into high gear under President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit was filed in Harris County District Court. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said in a statement that the program was “perfectly legal” and his office would defend it in court.
“This lawsuit is a cheap political stunt,” he said. “At a time when the president has unleashed ICE agents to terrorize immigrant neighborhoods, deport U.S. citizens, and trample the law, it’s shameful that Republican state officials are joining in instead of standing up for Texans.”
When Harris County started the Immigrant Legal Services Fund in 2020, it was the largest county in the United States without a program aimed at helping immigrants get legal counsel. Austin, Dallas and San Antonio already had similar programs.
County Judge Lina Hidalgo proposed the program, which passed on a party-line vote.
“When you have a family at a deportation hearing and they don’t have an attorney, they’re deported at a much higher rate, like 90% of the time, compared to like 5% of the time when they do have an attorney,” Hidalgo said at the time, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The program sends county dollars to five organizations: BakerRipley, the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Justice for All Immigrants, KIND, Inc. and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service.
Paxton argues in the lawsuit that these programs “serve no public purpose and instead constitute unconstitutional grants of public funds to private entities to subsidize individual deportation defenses.”
He is asking the judge to stop Harris County from disbursing funds to these organizations immediately, and bar them from doing so in the future.
Paxton has filed similar lawsuits against the cities of Austin and San Antonio over their support of nonprofit organizations that help Texans access abortions. In June, the 15th Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, blocking San Antonio from using the funds the city had allocated to potentially help people who needed to travel out of the state for abortions.
Menefee said his office would “fight back” against this lawsuit, calling it a “cheap political stunt.”
After the October vote to allocate funding for the legal defense program, Commissioner Rodney Ellis said in a statement that it was necessary because of the increase in immigration raids.
“Having access to legal representation not only improves case outcomes but helps keep families together,” he said in a statement, according to the Houston Chronicle. “In a county as diverse as ours, local government must step up to safeguard safety, justice, and the people we serve.”
California
NCAA agrees to pay volunteer coaches $303M under proposed settlement
The NCAA would pay $303 million to settle a class-action lawsuit affecting more than 7,700 men and women who worked as volunteer coaches in sports other than baseball, according to a motion for preliminary approval filed this week.
The coaches, by NCAA rule, were prohibited from receiving pay or benefits. The rule was rescinded in January 2023 and the lawsuit was filed two months later in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California to resolve wage-fixing claims.
“We are incredibly proud of this settlement which, if approved, will provide significant and meaningful compensation to thousands of hard-working coaches,” co-lead counsel Dennis Stewart, Michael Lieberman and Bob Gralewski said in a statement Tuesday. “We look forward to the approval process and are committed to ensuring that these funds are distributed to coaches in a fair and efficient manner.”
The NCAA would make three separate payments of $101 million into a qualified settlement fund starting within 30 days of final approval. Approved claimants would be paid no less than $5,000, and many would receive much more.
The settlement applies to all volunteer coaches who worked for a Division I sports program other than baseball between March 1, 2019, and July 1, 2023. A similar settlement to a class-action lawsuit brought by volunteer baseball coaches was approved in September.
Judge William B. Shubb could approve the proposed settlement as soon as next month, according to court papers.
Judge declines to dismiss sex trafficking case against real estate brothers
NEW YORK (AP) — A two-decade pattern of alleged sex trafficking by two luxury real estate brokers and their brother wasn’t “just men behaving badly,” a federal judge said as she left their indictment largely intact and rejected defense efforts to minimize the gravity of crimes involving dozens of women.
In an Oct. 17 opinion unsealed Wednesday, Judge Valerie E. Caproni expressed skepticism about some of the arguments defense lawyers offered as they tried to get the charges thrown out.
“As much as Defendants want to characterize the charged conduct as just men behaving badly, that is not what the Indictment charged,” she wrote.
She said the charges allege “that three grown men conspired to entice women and girls” to travel domestically and sometimes internationally to luxury hotels where they were drugged and sometimes physically restrained before they were raped or sexually assaulted.
Caproni did dismiss one attempted sex trafficking count, finding that the five-year statute of limitations had expired.
The three brothers — Oren, Tal and Alon Alexander — remain held without bail after pleading not guilty to charges in Manhattan federal court.
Oren Alexander and Tal Alexander sold high-end properties in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles before the charges were filed alleging that they used their wealth and influence to attack women from 2002 to 2021.
A defense lawyer said last week that the defense plans to show a jury that witnesses are lying at a trial scheduled for early January. The judge has said she might postpone the trial until May.
Caproni rejected defense assertions that the alleged crimes by the brothers were more like “date rape” allegations more normally prosecuted in state courts.
“That badly misrepresents the nature of the charges,” the judge wrote.
She said the allegations make clear that the alleged crimes were not “sexual assaults that serendipitously occurred” when a group of people in their 20s or 30s went on vacation, or during dates or at parties.
At a hearing last week, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said the jury will hear evidence at trial of group sex, threesomes and promiscuity.
In court papers, defense lawyers wrote that among the accusers they expect to testify at trial, they’d located evidence “that undermines nearly every aspect of the alleged victims’ narratives.”
They said they believe “that many witnesses are going to testify untruthfully on direct examination — whether it be because of their own current situation, their motive to lie for monetary gain, or their situation at the time.”
These witnesses “do not want to admit to the world that they consensually engaged in sexual activity with any of the Alexander brothers,” the lawyers said.
But Caproni wrote that she fails to understand how certain categories of information cited by the defense are likely to disprove the charges, such as proof that victims continued to contact or interact with the brothers or that they initiated contact with them.
She noted that a handful of messages cited by the defense regarding one accuser are contradicted by other messages, including one in which she expressed how she did not know how someone could so dislike her that they would harm her.
California
Ex-aide to governor indicted for alleged theft of campaign funds from ex-health secretary
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A former top aide to California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been indicted on federal charges alleging her involvement in a scheme to steal campaign money from former federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Dana Williamson was arrested and was scheduled to make her first court appearance Wednesday in Sacramento. It was not immediately clear if she had an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
The federal indictment lists four other co-conspirators. It alleges that Williamson was part of a scheme involving Sean McCluskie, who was Becerra’s chief of staff at the time of the alleged conduct.
Becerra is a former California attorney general who was appointed health secretary by former President Joe Biden. He is not implicated in the indictment.
The indictment alleges that the two took money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account and funneled it to McCluskie. It alleges they stole about $225,000 over a period of more than two years.
Williamson was Newsom’s chief of staff from late 2022 until late 2024.
California
Judge denies emergency request to keep UCLA football at Rose Bowl
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Wednesday denied a request by the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena for a temporary restraining order in their bid to keep UCLA football games at the Rose Bowl.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant said the parties had not demonstrated an emergency that would necessitate such an action. Instead, he suggested the plaintiffs’ attorneys seek discovery information about the Big Ten school’s discussions with SoFi Stadium and pursue a preliminary injunction.
Attorney Nima Mohebbi, who represents the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena, said he had filed a public records request looking for information about those discussions.
“Even though he found that there was no immediate emergency,” Mohebbi said, “he made very clear in a lot of his statements that there’s irreparable harm, that UCLA has an obligation to play at the Rose Bowl through 2044 and we’re very confident in our facts of this case. So I think all in, we feel very, very good.”
UCLA spokeswoman Mary Osako said in a statement: “As we have said, while we continue to evaluate the long-term arrangement for UCLA football home games, no decision has been made.”
UCLA has played its home games at the historic Rose Bowl since 1982. Its lease with the stadium runs through the 2043 season.
School attorneys denied in court that they had made any decisions about potential relocation.
Texas
AG suing county for helping immigrants facing deportation find legal support
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Harris County for allocating county funds to programs that help immigrants get access to legal support.
The county, home to Houston, created the Immigrant Legal Services Fund program in 2020 and last month appropriated an additional $1.3 million to keep it going. The program sends funds to five organizations that help people facing deportation get lawyers.
In a statement, Paxton called the program “evil and wicked,” as well as unconstitutional. This is the latest in a flurry of headline-grabbing lawsuits filed by Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, aimed at organizations that support immigrants.
The Harris County Jail leads the nation in ICE detainers — a request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to hold a person for deportation — as federal and state immigration enforcement has kicked into high gear under President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit was filed in Harris County District Court. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said in a statement that the program was “perfectly legal” and his office would defend it in court.
“This lawsuit is a cheap political stunt,” he said. “At a time when the president has unleashed ICE agents to terrorize immigrant neighborhoods, deport U.S. citizens, and trample the law, it’s shameful that Republican state officials are joining in instead of standing up for Texans.”
When Harris County started the Immigrant Legal Services Fund in 2020, it was the largest county in the United States without a program aimed at helping immigrants get legal counsel. Austin, Dallas and San Antonio already had similar programs.
County Judge Lina Hidalgo proposed the program, which passed on a party-line vote.
“When you have a family at a deportation hearing and they don’t have an attorney, they’re deported at a much higher rate, like 90% of the time, compared to like 5% of the time when they do have an attorney,” Hidalgo said at the time, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The program sends county dollars to five organizations: BakerRipley, the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Justice for All Immigrants, KIND, Inc. and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service.
Paxton argues in the lawsuit that these programs “serve no public purpose and instead constitute unconstitutional grants of public funds to private entities to subsidize individual deportation defenses.”
He is asking the judge to stop Harris County from disbursing funds to these organizations immediately, and bar them from doing so in the future.
Paxton has filed similar lawsuits against the cities of Austin and San Antonio over their support of nonprofit organizations that help Texans access abortions. In June, the 15th Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, blocking San Antonio from using the funds the city had allocated to potentially help people who needed to travel out of the state for abortions.
Menefee said his office would “fight back” against this lawsuit, calling it a “cheap political stunt.”
After the October vote to allocate funding for the legal defense program, Commissioner Rodney Ellis said in a statement that it was necessary because of the increase in immigration raids.
“Having access to legal representation not only improves case outcomes but helps keep families together,” he said in a statement, according to the Houston Chronicle. “In a county as diverse as ours, local government must step up to safeguard safety, justice, and the people we serve.”
California
NCAA agrees to pay volunteer coaches $303M under proposed settlement
The NCAA would pay $303 million to settle a class-action lawsuit affecting more than 7,700 men and women who worked as volunteer coaches in sports other than baseball, according to a motion for preliminary approval filed this week.
The coaches, by NCAA rule, were prohibited from receiving pay or benefits. The rule was rescinded in January 2023 and the lawsuit was filed two months later in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California to resolve wage-fixing claims.
“We are incredibly proud of this settlement which, if approved, will provide significant and meaningful compensation to thousands of hard-working coaches,” co-lead counsel Dennis Stewart, Michael Lieberman and Bob Gralewski said in a statement Tuesday. “We look forward to the approval process and are committed to ensuring that these funds are distributed to coaches in a fair and efficient manner.”
The NCAA would make three separate payments of $101 million into a qualified settlement fund starting within 30 days of final approval. Approved claimants would be paid no less than $5,000, and many would receive much more.
The settlement applies to all volunteer coaches who worked for a Division I sports program other than baseball between March 1, 2019, and July 1, 2023. A similar settlement to a class-action lawsuit brought by volunteer baseball coaches was approved in September.
Judge William B. Shubb could approve the proposed settlement as soon as next month, according to court papers.
