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(CN) — A former business associate of Tal and Oren Alexander — brothers with ties to the world of high-end real estate in Miami and New York City, who were convicted this week in federal court of drugging and sexually assaulting several women — filed a lawsuit Friday accusing several news outlets of defaming him.
A third brother, Alon Alexander, was also convicted in the case.
That business associate, Ohad Fisherman, was charged in 2024 with sexual battery, accused of helping Tal and Oren Alexander sexually assault a woman more than 10 years ago. But the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office dismissed the case against him after a video surfaced placing Fisherman on a boat near Miami Beach around the time of the alleged assault.
Fisherman, also a real estate broker, says his reputation was tarnished by the ensuing media coverage, including what he calls false and defamatory statements made by four news outlets: the Miami Herald, real estate news site the Real Deal and Miami-based television stations WPLG Local 10 News and WSVN 7 News.
Fisherman claims the news outlets wrongfully conflated his case with a high-profile federal sex-trafficking prosecution against the Alexander brothers.
In some cases, Fisherman says, they even falsely claimed he was their relative.
On Monday, Tal Alexander and Oren Alexander, prominent real estate brokers, were convicted alongside Alon Alexander, a security executive, of using their wealth and status to drug and rape women and girls.
The convictions followed a monthlong trial in federal court in New York, which featured testimony from more than 30 witnesses, including 11 victims.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office accused Fisherman in a separate case of helping Oren and Alon Alexander sexually assault a woman on New Year’s Eve in 2016 at a Miami Beach high rise. But prosecutors dismissed the charge on the eve of trial after a time-stamped video appeared to show Fisherman on a boat near Miami Beach around the time of the alleged assault.
“Given the prosecution’s inability to conclusively disprove the alibi, we determined in good faith that we could not prove the case against Ohad Fisherman beyond and to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt, which is required by law,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement at the time.
Fisherman, who was on honeymoon in Japan when the case was filed, said at a press conference last year that he was “labeled a monster based on a lie.”
In his lawsuit, Fisherman identifies one article by the Miami Herald and four articles by The Real Deal that he claims are defamatory.
Local 10 News also published “a series of now-deleted articles” that were defamatory, Fisherman states, while he says 7 News Miami published one defamatory article.
The news stories, Fisherman argues, falsely conveyed that he was “a co-conspirator of the Alexander brothers, that he is a relative of the Alexander family, that he was under federal investigation, that he was charged with sex trafficking crimes, and that he was involved in multiple predatory acts over a protracted period of time.” He also noted multiple instances where his photo was displayed alongside the Alexander brothers.
The news outlets did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
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