Alexander Brothers BOMBSHELL: Director Reveals What Peacock LEFT OUT! | Billy Bush

Well, yesterday, after 12 women gave emotional impact statements, sharing details of their most degrading and humiliating, debasing moments of their lives, the degenerate Alexander brothers sentenced to 30 years each in federal prison, where perhaps some of the very evil unleashed on the women will be reciprocated on them. Who knows their star? Their story of hunting young, attractive women, luring them to parties, dazzling them with boats, planes, and Hamptons parties, all for the express purpose of drugging them, raping them together, is the subject of the Peacock series, The Wolves of Real Estate. The director is Emma Schwartz, and she was inside the sentencing yesterday. She's here, she's with us. Let's go through this. Good morning. How are you? Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Tell me about what did people, you know, we didn't get to watch this. So can you describe what was most emotional in the day? You know, having been at trial for many days, it was sort of interesting going into the courthouse yesterday because normally you just get sent straight up to the 26th floor in the courtroom. And this time it was more of an event. They corralled all of the public, all of the press into these lines on the first floor. And we had to wait. And of course, you know, in that courthouse, when you wait, there's no cameras, you have no cell phone, you can't have your laptop. You have to actually, you know, just stand there and talk. And then You know, about 30 minutes before it started, the marshal would come and take four people at a time in an elevator. And we're like, what is going on here? And when you finally get into the courtroom, it was only half full by just before it was going to start. And then I understood why. Because all of a sudden, a long line of women walked in and took a seat on the... Was that choreographed for the judge, do you think? I think this actually might have been before the judge came in, but it was, you know, they were sort of held in a separate room and all came in together, along with several of the lawyers that were there. And this was really the first time you saw women together, right? Because during the trial, they had to stay sequestered from each other because they were witnesses in a case and they couldn't talk to each other. And there were also women who had not testified. In the trial who were also there, the prosecutor said there were 15 women who were there in the court and it was a really, really emotional experience to hear them get up. Even women that, you know, we'd heard testify at court before. This is where, you know, they're not just sitting there answering questions or answering a cross examination. They got to say what they want to say. And they said it with a lot of So I'm going to turn it over to you. A lot of strength, a lot of courage, and quite frankly, given how difficult the material was, it was amazing that even though the words were incredibly powerful, so many of these women just got through without crying, without outbursts, but you could feel everything that they were saying. God almighty. I mean, 12 women spoke. They gave impact statements. I'm What was going on on the face of Judge Valerie Caproni as these women starting were, you know, detailing what happened to them and where they are now? You felt like she was listening. She was looking at each one of them individually and, you know, I think taking in everything they said. to And, you know, one of the women said, speak I'm not here to speak to the brothers. I'm here to speak to you, Judge. I think, though, one of the most impactful moments now. was when one of the women talked about how her Eight-year-old daughter had Googled her name and she was one of the women, Lindsay Ackrey, who had, you know, testified using her real name and had spoken publicly and had spoken as part of our documentary. And it was, you know, a moment where her daughter didn't know what those words meant when she read about her mother, but it was painful for her to have to see, but also the motivation for why she. decided to speak out and continue to speak out. And I think that was really the message for a lot of these women is that they came forward because they hoped that other people wouldn't go through what they went through. Emma, the boys took no responsibility. I'm sure it was infuriating for the women there. Oren Alexander said, I'd never drugged or raped anyone, but I partied too much and slept with too many women. I want to talk about my faith. Abraham left his father's house. I left my past. Shut up. Judge Caproni wasn't having it. Tal Alexander, I want to thank the deputy, Angela, for greeting us with a smile every day. I grew up in Miami. I babysat children. Well, Jesus, if it wasn't horrifying enough, now we find out that. And then, you know, alone also. So, yeah. Howard, I guess his boss, asked me if I ever drugged a woman. I agreed to a lie detector test. The judge says, congratulations, you passed that. You fooled people. But I mean, she was. It seemed irritated by these guys, kind of relitigating the case, taking no ownership. Did she show that visibly? Well, look, the judge has had a bit of a cankerous relationship with the defense, you know, since the trial. You know, she sort of rolled her eyes at the defense and on the occasions that she would rule in their favor, it would almost be like a running joke, like that she agreed with the defense in their position. But fundamentally, once a jury has convicted them, you know, that is the law of the land, you know, and they can appeal, they can appeal as soon as they have a sentence. But. The sentencing, as she, you know, said, it was not the place to relitigate the case. And so she was, you know, definitely, you know, trying to make sure that things move smoothly and move forward. You know, I think one of the things the judge said was that, you know, the brothers at least, you know, seem sort of like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? To some people, you know, had accomplished so much. But in the words of so many of these women, they were exactly the opposite. But what I thought was really interesting is that the prosecution was asking for life, as were many of the women. Right. And she did not do that. She ran the sentences concurrently and gave them ultimately 30 years in federal prison. And I was surprised by that. And so were many. Why do you think that is? Well, look, I think what she said is that they're not. Beyond the potential to rehabilitate themselves. And I think, you know, there are bigger questions, you know, take the facts of this case aside about our entire prison system and how we lock people away for so, so long. And I think that's part of the factors that she was taking into account. You know, she did not buy that just because they had gotten married and had children that they had somehow, you know, walked away from it because here they were saying they had never actually committed crimes. But, you know, I think. There is a part, I think, of a judge's responsibility to say, can we make people better? Is there a way our system can do that? And she was trying to give them that potential, which I wasn't sure if that was how she was going to approach it. So it was very interesting to see. Yeah, well, she's got so much pressure on her as a woman with 12 women filing into the court behind them. She has to, you know, but she. But look, 30 years is a long time. I mean, think about it. Yeah, they're 70 years old when they come out. Almost, right? And they, and you know, all of them have young children who they will not be around to see grow up if all of this stays. So it is a very, very harsh sentence. And there was an interesting question that she also raised. She says, you know, I don't think you've been a good influence on each other. And at first, in the last hearing, she suggested that. Perhaps it was not a good idea for them to be housed together and ultimately said, I will defer to the psychiatrist who studied these things to say, should you be housed together? Should you not? But there is this question that, you know, because this is a case in which, you know, the prosecutor said that they conspired together to do this behavior is being together helpful or not helpful in having any of them sort of really grapple with what they've been through and what's happened. Not helpful. I mean, I just would think that they feed off each other. Their individualism might be key to the rehab, in my opinion. I mean, that will be more painful. Five years apart in prison is probably more painful to them than 30 years if they're together. I think it seems that they just fed off each other in the worst possible way. Anyway, the judge was. Boy, he's so interesting. She's like, you know, I heard what I heard. Alan was 30 years old and bragged about bagging a 17-year-old. You drugged and raped her. Your brother raped an 18-year-old and invited another to participate in a three-way. So even though she showed some leniency. She was extra harsh in addressing them. So I think it seemed like she knew, okay, I'm going to leave some room for rehabilitation, but I'm not going to leave anything on the field, you know, as far as expressing, you know, my disgust at these guys. Yeah, I think she said, look, I will not call anyone a monster, but your behavior was monstrous. That was sort of her language. And I think that's a very... powerful and, you know, particular way to put it, the way that she did. So Emma Schwartz here, the director of The Wolves of Real Estate, which is on Peacock, it's three episodes. I found it to be riveting. I just rifled right through it. You, you know. Spending so much time with this material, how did you evolve throughout the project? Do you end up with any type of empathy for these guys, or did it deepen your disgust? Look, it's a project where I think when we started in, we didn't know where it was going, right? In summer of 2024, there had been, you know, that initial article that came out in The Real Deal, two women filing lawsuits, alleging that, you know, the twins had raped and sexually assaulted two separate women. And all of a sudden, there's a flurry of media and dozens of women speaking out. That was sort of the time that we partnered with The reporters at New York Magazine who wrote sort of a much deep dive and looked also, I think, into how they grew up, their business, so much more. And, you know, fast forward in a couple of months, the brothers were arrested. It was shocking and surprising in the early morning hours. And that's, I think, when we knew this case was going to be something much, much bigger. But we didn't really know how that was going to shake out. We can sit here and say, OK, now that they were convicted and they're going to have a sentence for 30 years, like. It's all understood, but it was not understood. I think that's part of the journey that we went through and that we hope viewers can learn in this story, right? Because, you know, at the same time that there were more and more charges being brought over the last year, this was also the same time that the same prosecution office, you know, took Diddy to trial on similar charges of sex trafficking and lost. And what happens after that? Warren Alexander hires Two of Diddy's attorneys. Mark Agnello and Teddy Garagos. And so it was like, is this going to be part two? Did the government, you know, overplay its hand? Because one of the arguments the brothers kept making was like, we didn't really traffic people. And this is not the right application of the trafficking statute. Now, obviously, the case went forward. But in that time, you know, there were women like Lindsay getting these, you know. Voicemails from an investigator saying, hey, be careful. I got a call about you. I'm not going to do this, but you need to like hide. Or a woman who we know is victim four, who found out that there were investigators working for the brothers who were asking her neighbors questions about her children. Now, look, a defendant has every right to investigate. And she dropped out. She said, I'm out of the lawsuit. She said, I'm out. I'm out. But why would anyone need to know anything about their children, right? Like, that is, that felt to her, as her attorney said, like an intimidation act. By the way, I noticed, you know, victim four is in here because of a phone call. Threatening her kids or asking questions about her kids, which amounted to a threat in her mind. Did she address their depravity, not just in the drugging and the raping, but in the coercion and in the intimidation? So what happened with victim four was not part of the trial in so far as it went before the jury. But once that happened, the government alerted. Obviously, the judge and the judge said, hey, what's happening? The defense tried to say, look, we never told him to do this. We've done an audit. We've explained everything. And if this ever happened, this will never happen again because we've changed up. Now, what we didn't know in the public is that. Both the prosecution and the defense knew that she was already not responding to her attorneys before the trial happened. And so that meant two of the charges were ultimately dropped. But we in the public didn't actually know that until the end of the trial. I was actually wondering, like, when's victim four going to come? Until I found out that the charges were being dropped. So, you know, there were things happening behind the scenes that, you know, we didn't know. But, you know, obviously now we know. And look, even when you sit through a court. You don't know what's going on in the minds of the jurors. You can't talk to them. And, you know, it only takes one person to disagree for you to have a mistrial or acquittal, right? And that's, you know, I think something that can happen in any case. And so it was sort of a big wow to say, oh, my gosh, like the jury convicted them on every single charge. Um, for each brother. Um, that was a very clear message from what those 12 jurors felt having listened to weeks of testimony. Yeah. Emma Schwartz, director of the Wolves of Real Estate on Peacock. Um, you know, people ask when you encounter monsters like the Alexander brothers, uh, you, you, you wonder, you know, how does this happen? Were they raised this way? Were they raised by wolves? Were they spoiled? Or were they just natural born rapists, just evil from the beginning? Can we blame their mother and father, Shlomi and Orly Alexander? Do you get any sense in your own mind of how they became this way? Well, look, the question of how did this happen and how did three brothers grow up in the same household like this is one that we've asked, we are trying to answer, and I don't know that we have all of those answers. But one of the things that we were able to do in the documentary is talk to people who knew them growing up and people especially who knew them in high school. And what we do know is, look, they came from a family that had by the time that they were teenagers a lot of privilege a lot of wealth and it wasn't just that they had you know been raised with that but their parents really built an American dream they were immigrants to this country built a security company and pushed their children right pushed their children to work hard but you know the father was known to have a temper and certainly the at least you know as we could find there were definitely incidents where you know there were Your parallels with the The brother's behavior, but none of that really explains what happened next or even the allegations from people in high school who said like their mother Orly, is she, you know, is she a weak person because their disdain for women that not just the disrespect, but it's like the objectification, but it seems like a Almost like a resentment and a hatred for women. I mean, the kind of language that they used in writing certainly expressed an absolute disregard for women and women as people. There was this interesting thing, though, it didn't make it in the documentary, but we do talk about this blog, this blog where the brothers' friends were putting these posts together with things like, it's not rape if, or when they wake up You know, this was sort of writing that the prosecution said, like, this goes to the mentality of the conspiracy and what the brothers think about women. And there was this little part where they, you know, talk about, you know, basically, women wake up after an encounter, and they feel terrible, but that makes them feel good. I mean, it's a very happy, like excited, really, really hard to hear. But there's a part on that blog where they said, like, except your mom, like a mom is somehow separate in their mind from women. I don't I mean, I'm not saying that makes I don't know if that makes any sense, but there was this differentiation and, you know, Until the sentencing, the brothers' parents were there every single day of trial, supporting them there by their side. Why weren't they sentencing, I wonder? The brothers asked them not to show up to not have to deal with that. And, you know, it was an interesting choice. But, you know, a lot of times in sentencing, right, you'll get like the backstory of somebody like, well, you didn't know that they were abused as a child and this terrible thing happened and that's why they did bad things, right? That was not what we saw. In fact, the argument was how they were raised to be loving, wonderful, good adults. And so there weren't these mitigating factors of their childhood that they were putting out there, which only just raises so many more questions about, well, how then does this happen? And what shaped this seeming to be okay for the brothers, right? I have to tell you, I mean, I'm just so, I'm so sick by the whole thing. I just. So you talked to, you know, you had two, three prominent, I think, women participating in. In the doc of current, then you had, you know, episode two focused on high school and, and, you know, that they did their depraved behavior, the drugging and the raping goes back to ninth grade. Is it was that the earliest there are allegations going back, you know, I don't know that we know how far back exactly by year there are allegations. There are, you know, people have talked to a number of different women from high school. You know, there was... Allegedly a woman who had been in middle school at the time of something occurred, but there were never charges filed against the brother that led to actual, you know, there were, there was that one police report that we talked about, but there weren't a lot of, you know, there were not criminal cases and the brothers have denied that they ever did anything. But when you talk to people who knew them in high school, after the charges came out, they were like. Oh, I'm not surprised was like a very common reaction that you heard from people because there had been rumors, there had been questions, there had been women who went through things that were in whispers because these are young, you know, not even adults, young girls, young women who are already in an uncomfortable situation because like what teenager wants to talk about sex publicly, right? And so let alone when it's a situation like many had described. Yeah, they wrote texts to each other, right? They would be like, you know, hey, we're good. We're going to get, you know, everything's fine unless one of these hoes, you know, complains. You've got, I'm sorry, 70 women who have made allegations against these guys, claims against these guys. So that's a giant trail if you're going to say if one of them, you know, does some complaining. Oh, how could they not know? I mean, there were allegations in writing going back. You know, into 2009 and 2010, there was a woman who testified at trial and there was actually a photo that was found on one of the brother's computers in which this woman had written in like makeup. It was I don't know, eyeliner or lipstick, one of the two. And she had written rapist because she had thought she had seen them raping somebody. And then she left that morning. There is an email trail that we talk about in the documentary in which. And someone who seems to be a woman is reaching out to Oren and saying, I know, sending a link to what we now know is a fake article alleging that the brothers had, you know, done things in high school. And, you know, Oren is like, you know, you're a liar, like, and this woman is like, I know you raped other people like they were accused of raping people well before this trial came out. It just wasn't public. Right. And so they were living. Um, for many, many years, but their trail of misdeeds are so long. It's amazing. The gall, the nerve, the complacency, uh, equals the depravity. You know what I mean? Like you're so much there. And yet they were like, what was it? Like, we're never going to get caught. We're bigger than that. We're larger than life. I mean, how stupid. One of the striking things was how much they could put in writing about how they viewed women and what they were planning to do. Things like, we're going to, you know, hunt women, we need a return on investment for bringing women, like there's some sort of property to be bought and sold, or are things that were, frankly, even more crass than what we included in the documentary. So, you know, their own language certainly speaks to a mentality that is really, really. It's uncomfortable. And, you know, that alone, I think, really is hard to forget, even if there's not video footage of all of these events or, like, somebody who is watching it. It speaks to somebody who doesn't have a respect for women at its core. Emma Schwartz, the director of Wolves of Real Estate about the Alexander brothers. It's on Peacock. What was left out? What's on the cutting room floor? What did you have to drop? What was like? Was there legal reasons? And what did we not see? Oh, well, if I could only share all of those things. No, look, there was a lot of people that we spoke to who weren't ready to speak publicly. Right. And so there's a lot of that that, you know, never made it into the story. But beyond that, you know, there were so many accounts, so many accounts from women, even at trial. And it's like, how much do you need to take in from a viewer's perspective to understand it? It's one thing in a court, in a jury, you have to hear all the evidence because you have to weigh that. But, you know, many of the accounts. Almost seem like they're like a pattern over and over again. Right. And so, you know, you're you're brought back to an apartment for an after party that may not exist. You're given a drink. I mean, how many accounts do you hear before you understand that as a viewer? Sure. But... You know, there were, there's always things that you wish you could include or more that you wanted to include. But I hope that in totality, you take away, you know, something really, really powerful. But I will say, okay, one message is just like, seared into my head that we didn't end up using, I'll give you this one. Because it's, it's this exchange between Oren and a woman. And she texts him in the morning and says, excuse my language here. But she decides, I woke up with a dick inside of me, you need to ask consent before you do this. And he's like, Oh, I'm sorry, but I used my fingers first, like, as if that justifies the action. And she says, I told you, I didn't want to do this. And so, you know, I think, That sort of parallels the mentality of what we saw Oren say in court just yesterday, right? Right. I didn't do anything wrong. That was reflective. A guy that's like, you know, actually was confused, like, oh, I thought there was actual consent. Oh, my God. Terrible panic and fear runs down like, oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, my God. And you see what's coming. You see like these guys like, yeah, you know, sorry. I use my fingers first. It's a level of entitlement about somebody else. I'm untouchable. I'm untouchable. So I think that's where it was really hard to sort of say, well, there was a misunderstanding because she was pretty clear about what she expected in that text. Emma, what do you know about the fourth Alexander brother? Tell me he's like a priest somewhere or tell me he's a rabbi. But tell me he's like, you know, an actual decent person. Well, so to be very clear, the fourth brother has never been accused of anything, never been associated with these allegations at all. He's he's. Six years older or so and married actually to the daughter of the owners of the Carnival Cruise Line. Thank You know, I, I, I think that is one of those questions, you know, one of the people that we interviewed in our documentary talked about how, because the, the, the twins and tall were so close in age, they were sort of like a pack, right? They were this group in a way that their older brother wasn't. And I think he even says in his letter that he wrote to the court, you. like, they grew up with a little more privilege than he did, because his parents had made more money by the time they got a little bit older. But he has, you know, he showed up in court and he was the one close family member that was there yesterday. He was at the sentencing. And so he has been following and asked the judge for leniency for his own brother. So he's he stood behind them, too. And he is seemingly a normal guy. I mean, it's it's it's again, like, you know, there's there's so many questions about, you know. How a family is shaped, but I think we all know from families, families are complicated. We're not all the same people. And we can go through even similar experiences and come out very, very differently. So, you know, those are some of the questions I think we'll continue to grapple with with this story, right? Everybody wants an easy answer. Why did this happen? Frankly, a lot of the women want to know, why did this happen to me? And there are just sometimes questions that we may never have answers to because the people who have to answer them. Are, you know, the three men who stood up yesterday and said that, you know, they've never committed crimes. And so, you know, to understand the why, there's not even a sense that they believe they did something really wrong yet. Well, the Wolves of Real Estate is on Peacock. Emma Schwartz, the director, thank you so much for spending some time. She's giving us her report of the sentencing yesterday of the Alexander brothers, 30 years each. They're going away. I will say this, watching your doc, you know, I just, it was like emotional. I just felt it as I was going. I just said, like, it makes you feel. As you watch, so terrific job. Thank you very much for the time. Well, thank you so much for your interest, for your attention to this. And I think, you know, fundamentally, it's a story that raises a lot of questions that we're still grappling with as a culture, as a society. You know, how do we create a world in which women can feel safe coming forward sooner? What role does power and wealth play in accountability? And, you know, these are conversations that are happening today in so many other cases. And hopefully that dialogue can continue. I totally agree. You are terrific. Thank you for everything. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks for your patience with my internet today. Thank you so much for joining us today.