Official co-founder Nicole Oge mentioned the choice for Tal to step away from the agency was a mutual one. Tal’s lawyer, Deanna Paul, mentioned he wouldn’t let current rape claims “be a further distraction” to the agency or purchasers.
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Luxurious dealer Tal Alexander has joined his brother, Oren Alexander, in taking a go away of absence from their co-founded agency Official within the wake of a current lawsuit that alleged Tal raped and sexually assaulted a girl in New York in 2012 with the help and participation of his brothers, Oren and Alon.
The information got here on Tuesday as a rep for Tal advised Enterprise Insider that he would “take a leave from” Official, the agency he co-founded with Oren, Nicole Oge, Richard L. Jordan and Andrew Wachtfogel in 2022.
About two weeks in the past, Oren stepped down from Official after two lawsuits got here to gentle that had been filed towards him and his twin, Alon, by separate ladies alleging rape and sexual assault by the twins a couple of decade in the past.
“Given the salacious nature of this false allegation and impact on Official, Tal and his partners have decided he will take a leave from the company to focus fully on clearing his name,” Walden Macht & Haran LLP’s Deanna Paul, the lawyer representing Tal, mentioned in an announcement emailed to Inman. “He won’t allow these claims to be a further distraction to the company or its clients.”
Paul added that Tal appears to be like ahead to rejoining Official “in short order.” Tal’s case was moved to federal court docket on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Tal beforehand advised Inman that it was “fully expected that shakedown artists are going to line up given the allegations against Tal’s brothers,” however maintained that Tal “had done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Oge advised The New York Occasions that the choice to have Tal step away from the agency was a mutual one.
“I think Tal and Oren understand that their priority is focusing on the task at hand for them, which is different from mine,” Oge mentioned. “Mine is focused on our business.”
The newest lawsuit, which names Tal, Oren and Alon as defendants, was filed by Angelica Parker, previously referred to as Angelica Cecora.
Parker alleges within the grievance that when she visited an house in New York Metropolis in 2012 the place Tal, Oren and Alon all lived collectively, she was caught in an assault allegedly orchestrated by Oren, through which Alon and Tal raped her as Oren “sat and watched.”
Parker’s lawyer, Michael Willemin, associate at Wigdor LLP, beforehand advised Inman that the lawsuit was “intended to send a message that the law applies even to the very wealthy and well-connected, including the Alexanders.”
In 2012, when she nonetheless glided by the identify Angelica Cecora, Parker sued boxer Oscar De La Hoya for alleged battery and false imprisonment. A choose in that case discovered the claims “completely without merit” and ordered her to pay De La Hoya’s authorized charges and a $500 superb, based on a report from The New York Put up.
The sooner lawsuits, filed by Kate Whiteman and Rebecca Mandel in March, accused Oren and Alon of rape relationship again to 2010 and 2012. These lawsuits didn’t identify Tal. Nevertheless, after the fits grew to become public, the lawyer representing Whiteman and Mandel, Evan Torgan of Torgan Cooper + Aaron, advised The Actual Deal that roughly 30 alleged victims had come ahead to his workplace, a few of whom had named Tal of their allegations.
After Oren introduced he could be stepping away from Official a couple of weeks in the past, he was faraway from the agency’s web site. His license can be now inactive in Florida and New York.
All three lawsuits had been filed underneath an extension of New York’s Gender-Motivated Violence Safety Regulation, which has given survivors of gender-motivated violence a two-year window through which to sue their alleged perpetrators, regardless of how way back the assault occurred. The window to file a lawsuit closes in March 2025.
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