Australian woman who accused NY party circuit twins of sexual assault found dead in Sydney

5 hours ago 2

By Debra Kamin

January 16, 2026 — 8.09am

Kate Whiteman, the Australian woman whose accusation of sexual assault against twin brothers Oren and Alon Alexander opened the floodgates for dozens of similar allegations from women across the globe, was found dead near Sydney late last year. She was 45.

Her death, which has not been previously reported, was confirmed by a spokesperson for the NSW coroner and is under investigation.

Oren Alexander in court in Miami, Florida, in late 2024.

A cause of death has not been officially determined, the spokesperson said, but investigations are prompted only when there are doubts about whether the death was the result of “natural causes”.

Whiteman sued Oren Alexander, a high-profile real estate agent, and his twin brother, Alon, in March 2024.

She said she met the brothers, regulars on the New York party circuit, at a Manhattan nightclub in 2012 and they forced her into an SUV as she was leaving. They drove her to the Hamptons, she said, where she was assaulted at Sir Ivan’s Castle, a party mansion in the Southampton town of Water Mill.

Her accusations were followed the next day by a lawsuit from Rebecca Mandel, who accused the brothers of drugging and then assaulting her at a party in Manhattan in 2010. Mandel described consuming a drink – her first of the evening – that Alon had handed to her before her memory went hazy.

But in the lawsuit, she recalled Oren forcefully penetrating her while Alon held her down. She said they then switched places and the assault continued, according to the lawsuit.

The brothers have denied all allegations. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Whiteman’s death.

Evan Torgan, Whiteman’s lawyer, declined to comment.

Text messages and compromising photographs between Whiteman and the brothers had been leaked to The Daily Mail, which ran a story in July with a headline claiming that “raunchy nude-filled sexts threaten to blow the case wide open”.

A Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department image of Alon, left, and Oren Alexander.

Oren Alexander had been one of the top-earning real estate brokers in New York alongside his older brother Tal Alexander, who was his partner first at the brokerage Douglas Elliman, and then at Official, a boutique luxury brokerage the two founded in 2022.

They regularly smashed real estate records, including with the 2019 sale of a nearly $US240 million penthouse – at the time, the most expensive residential sale in US history.

Alon Alexander, who worked as an executive at his family’s private security company, was his brothers’ regular sidekick at social events and private clubs from Mykonos to Miami.

Charismatic and armed with youth and millions of dollars, Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander together built an image of jet-setting bachelors. But whispers that the brothers may have assaulted people had followed them since high school.

In the summer of 2024, those whispers spilled into public view when The Real Deal, a real estate trade publication, first reported that Whiteman and Mandel had filed lawsuits against the twins.

A third woman soon sued the twins and Tal Alexander, and a chorus of allegations began mounting on social media against all three.

In July 2024, 10 women shared with The New York Times personal accusations of sexual assault against the brothers. Seven of those women said they believed they had been drugged, describing a fog that erased or clouded their memory.

Tal Alexander, like the twins, has denied all allegations, and the brothers began a public-relations campaign to clear their names.

But in December 2024, in a series of raids by Miami police and the FBI, all three were arrested and charged with a federal sex-trafficking conspiracy. Prosecutors have filed 11 counts against the three men. Their trial is set to begin in Manhattan federal court on January 26.

A display showing images of Alon, Oren, and Tal Alexander in December 2024.

The brothers have been held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, and in the 13 months since their arrest, have sought to frame both the civil lawsuits and criminal allegations as an intertwined conspiracy led by women seeking to extort them.

Last year, the three men sued The Real Deal for defamation, accusing the publication of refusing “to consider or publish anything that called into question its false narrative” of the case against them.

In exhibits accompanying their lawsuit, the brothers included photographs and screenshots of suggestive messages Whiteman had sent to Oren and Alon Alexander in the months after the alleged assault – the same material that The Daily Mail published.

Oren Alexander had personally given the messages to The Real Deal, according to the suit.

“TRD refused to let facts get in the way of an opportunity to make millions of dollars profiting off printing false allegations against the Alexanders,” the brothers said in their complaint.

Amir Korangy, the publisher of The Real Deal, did not immediately provide a comment when reached by the Times.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Anyone needing support can contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028, Lifeline 13 11 14, and Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800.

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