An actress and comedian says she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander, a top luxury real estate agent who is facing a string of accusations that he and his two of his brothers sexually assaulted women — allegations that had been whispered throughout the high-end real estate industry for years.
Renee Willett, 31, filed a federal lawsuit on Friday accusing Mr. Alexander, 37, of attacking her in his apartment nearly nine years ago. She is the fourth woman to file a lawsuit this summer against Mr. Alexander. Two earlier lawsuits filed this year name Mr. Alexander and his twin brother, Alon, who does not work in real estate but often socializes with him. A third suit filed in June names Oren, Alon and their older brother Tal Alexander, 38, who is Oren’s longtime partner in real estate sales.
Isabelle Kirshner, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, said she had no comment on the new allegation at this time. Oren, Tal and Alon have denied all previous allegations.
Like other women who have said they were assaulted, Ms. Willett said she was prompted to file a lawsuit after reading articles about similar claims involving the Alexanders. Her lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, came two days after The New York Times published an article with accounts from several women about the brothers.
“I felt a responsibility to come forward,” she said. “I have to do this not just for myself, but for everyone else.”
Ms. Willett is represented by Evan Torgan, the lawyer representing Kate Whiteman, who filed the first lawsuit against the brothers in March.
“Because of Kate, we have been contacted by a shocking amount of women sharing similar experiences,” Mr. Torgan said.
For the recent article, The Times interviewed 10 women who said they had been sexually assaulted by the brothers or believed they might have been. Among them are top agents, including Tracy Tutor, a broker at Douglas Elliman Beverly Hills and one of the stars of the reality television show “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles.” Seven of the women said they believed they had been drugged, describing memory loss.
Claims of sexual assault — first reported by The Real Deal, a real estate trade publication, in June — have shaken the luxury real estate industry and have led to a precipitous fall for Tal and Oren Alexander, who were star agents at Douglas Elliman, one of the largest real estate brokerages in the country. In 2022, they started their own brokerage, Official, with three other co-founders.
After the initial lawsuits, Tal and Oren resigned from Official.
For more than a decade, they were powerhouses in high-end real estate. But rumors of sexual assault and drugging followed them, according to interviews with more than 40 brokers, executives and industry insiders across the country. Eight of them said that executives at Douglas Elliman and Side, the company that provided brokerage services for Official, had been notified of incidents. But the brothers continued to work in real estate and were not investigated.
In statements to The Times, Stephen Larkin, a spokesman for Douglas Elliman, said the company had never received any complaints of sexual assault or harassment regarding the brothers, nor was management aware of any such claims.
Katherine Mechling, a spokeswoman for Side said in a statement, “We are unaware of anyone at Side who had previous knowledge of these allegations, and they are allegations that we take very seriously and behavior that we would never condone or invite into our community.”
Tal and Oren’s work often mixed with an elite social scene in Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons. The three women who sued earlier and several women who have spoken to The Times described how their encounters with the men occurred at parties.
In Ms. Willett’s lawsuit, she says she met Oren Alexander on a membership-only dating app, in November 2015. They exchanged messages for several weeks, and on Dec. 15, 2015, she said, she agreed to meet him in person for the first time, according to the lawsuit. He suggested they meet at a hotel bar, but when she arrived that evening, the bar was closed, so she agreed when he proposed that they meet at his apartment nearby, she said in complaint.
At his apartment, he gave her a carbonated beverage, which she drank, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Alexander then offered to show her his art collection, leading her to his bedroom, she said in the complaint.
Ms. Willett tried to leave the bedroom, but Mr. Alexander blocked the door, according to the lawsuit. Despite her repeated pleas for him to stop, he then sexually assaulted her, according to the lawsuit.
The brothers have denied all previous allegations.
“Throughout the attack, Renee felt physically impaired from the carbonated beverage,” the lawsuit says, adding that she “felt powerless throughout the entire ordeal.”