The Australian woman who took on New York’s powerful Alexander twins

1 month ago 16

Kate Whiteman did not live to see her day in court.

Last month, lawyers for the 45-year-old Australian agreed to pause her civil case before the New York Supreme Court, which alleged she had been raped and kidnapped by two well-known and highly successful brothers, twins Alon and Oren Alexander.

Kate Whiteman was found dead in Central West NSW last month. The 45-year-old had accused the Alexander brothers of raping her.

Along with his older brother Tal, Oren was behind some of the biggest home sales in American history, with clients including Kim Kardashian and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger. The pair set records for real estate sales across America, entrenching them in the New York party scene and making them regulars at lavish events across the country, including at Sir Ivan’s, a castle in the Hamptons.

The allegations Whiteman first made in March 2024 produced a cascade of other reports from more than 60 alleged victims, leading to an FBI investigation and a criminal trial set to take place in New York this month.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that for over a decade, all three brothers had used their wealth and power “to repeatedly and violently drug, sexually assault and rape dozens of female victims”.

Whiteman’s legal team agreed to let the prosecution take precedence over her own claims.

Tal Alexander, right, and his younger brother Oren Alexander outside their home on Miami Beach in 2019.

But late last year, she was found dead at Cowra in Central-West NSW. The NSW Coroner said in a statement Whiteman’s death was not being treated as suspicious.

The news of her death, first reported by The New York Times on Friday, has become a global story.

Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for the Alexander brothers, questioned the timing of the release of the news of her death, just over a week before the criminal trial is set to begin.

“The decision to release this information publicly on the eve of trial invites obvious questions,” he said in a statement.

“We were unaware that Kate Whiteman passed away last month until we learned about it from the media today. Her attorney and the federal prosecutors were in court with us earlier this week and made no mention of it.”

Another alleged victim, who asked not to be identified due to the impending trial, told this masthead that Whiteman’s death was her “worst nightmare”. She said the pair last spoke after Whiteman moved home to Australia.

“I feel really heartbroken,” the woman said, describing the ongoing trauma of her own alleged attack. “I really relate to feeling like someone who was scared.”

Engelmayer did not respond to the alleged victims’ claims and accused the media of manipulative coverage “on the eve of a pivotal trial.”

“Australian authorities have confirmed and will confirm that her death, while tragic, was not suspicious,” he said.

Little is known of Whiteman’s life in Australia, before or after her time in New York. She died in Cowra, but spent time living in Queensland.

On Friday, a middle-aged man who identified as her brother answered the door of a Sunshine Coast flat.

Oren Alexander, co-founder of Official Partners, left, and Alon Alexander brother of Tal and Oren Alexander, during a bond hearing in Miami.

Leaving the security chain latched and speaking cautiously through the opening, he said his family was attempting to get her laptop released for their own investigation.

“We’ll have to recover some data first,” the man said, declining to comment further.

In the complaint filed in the New York Supreme Court in March 2024, lawyers for Whiteman claimed she first met the twins in 2008 and rejected their persistent advances.

In 2012, during a weekend at the Hamptons, the twins allegedly pulled Whiteman into a car, took her to a party at a remote property and led her to a bedroom.

She was then “sexually assaulted, abused, raped, pinned, groped, harassed, battered, and fondled by defendants Alon and Oren”, her lawyers claimed. For months afterwards, she “stayed in bed and very rarely left her home due to extreme depression, anxiety, and fear for her own safety”.

Oren Alexander, Tal Alexander and Alon Alexander in 2014.

The Alexander brothers have rejected the account as “shockingly false” and designed to “concoct a specific narrative”. This narrative was then “fed to the media and ultimately provided a roadmap for an onslaught of copycat accusations to follow”, lawyers for the pair argued in a motion to dismiss Whiteman’s complaint.

The motion argued Whiteman did not go to a hospital or police station, confide in a friend or family member or confront the twins privately. It accused her of deleting Facebook messages relevant to the case.

The Alexander brothers also relied on a series of friendly, and at times, sexually explicit messages, which they said Whiteman sent in the months after she was allegedly raped and kidnapped.

One message contained an invitation to a party at the same property at which Whiteman said the attack took place.

The twins’ legal team described the messages as “completely and inexplicably inconsistent” with Whiteman’s account of horrific abuse.

In turn, Whiteman’s lawyers accused the Alexanders of “cherry-picking” and showing no understanding of sexual assault trauma, which often involved victims carrying on relationships with their abusers.

They also pointed to another alleged victim who said Alon Alexander had raped her, then forced her to unlock her phone to send himself an Instagram message from her device saying “hey babe”.

The judge in Whiteman’s case ultimately rejected the Alexanders’ bid to throw the case out, ruling that the Facebook messages had not been shown to be “unambiguous, authentic and undeniable”.

The Alexander brothers set a record $US357 million sale for a penthouse apartment in the 220 Central Park South building.

On December 1, the parties agreed to postpone their civil proceedings until after the Alexanders’ criminal trial, at which Whiteman was not scheduled to testify.

The three brothers, who have denied all the allegations, have been held for more than a year in the same Brooklyn prison as accused United Healthcare CEO murderer Luigi Mangione, and more recently, Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

The prison is a far cry from Sir Ivan’s castle in the Hamptons, the faux-medieval fortress in Long Island frequented by the brothers.

Whiteman was one of the first two women to take the brothers to court under New York’s Adult Survivors Act in 2024, which triggered a rush of claims against the trio, including from women who say they were drugged with cocaine, mushrooms and GHB.

The alleged abuse took place as Tal and Oren built their reputations with massive real estate deals, including Hilfiger’s Plaza Hotel penthouse and a Miami apartment for Kardashian and her then-husband Kanye West.

The Alexander brothers sold Tommy Hilfiger’s apartment for $88 million in 2016.

In 2019, they set a new sales record for a $US357 million New York apartment at the 220 Central Park South building.

Whiteman’s claims were initially reported by The Real Deal, a real estate publication, which is now facing a $700 million defamation suit from the Alexander brothers.

The Department of Justice trial, which will hear claims from several alleged victims, is set to begin on January 26.

Miami Dade Circuit Court Judge Mindy S. Glazer is seen via video presiding over the first court appearance of Alon Alexander.

“Kate knew exactly what she was risking when she filed this case,” her lawyers said in court documents in July.

“She knew that the Alexanders would try to discredit, smear, and intimidate her. She filed it anyway. And that act of courage opened the door for countless women who recount eerily similar stories of abuse.”