Day 13 of the Alexander brothers trial introduced a new accuser who took the stand and gave a lengthy, emotional account of what she says happened in Israel in 2016. Testifying under the pseudonym Ava Wells, she told jurors that what began as drinks during a trip to Tel Aviv ended, in her telling, with Alon Alexander raping her in an Airbnb.
Wells is describing an incident that is not charged in the indictment and she is represented by civil attorney Evan Torgan, who represents 11 alleged victims connected to the case.
After Wells finished, her friend who traveled with her testified and backed up portions of her story. The day also featured tense exchanges between the judge and counsel over a video taken from the phone of Said Abulafia, a friend of the brothers who was there that night, along with a sharp dispute about whether text messages from another accuser, Liz Kennedy, could be shown to the jury.
The defense tried to introduce the Abulafia video, calling it their “crown jewel” and arguing that it undermined Wells’s timeline. The judge sided with the prosecution, ruling that without proper metadata the video lacked foundation and was therefore irrelevant. The defense responded by going directly at Wells’s credibility, pressing her on her social media posts, prior text messages, and what they portrayed as shifts in her account.
What the Witnesses Said
Ava Wells (Pseudonym): A 30-year-old cosmetologist at the time, Wells testified that she was in Tel Aviv with a friend, Sofia Langan, in March 2016. After seeing on Facebook that Alon Alexander,a man she had met years earlier and talked with online, was also in town, she reached out. She claimed that after meeting for drinks at his Airbnb, Alon led her into a bedroom and raped her. She testified that she was terrified, repeatedly said “no,” and tried to push him off, but he was too strong. Afterward, she said, he threw her underwear in a washing machine and made a vulgar phone call in Hebrew, which she understood, about his “post-flight release.”
Sofia Langan (Pseudonym): Wells’s friend corroborated that they went to Alon’s apartment, that Wells and Alon disappeared into a bedroom, and that she was annoyed at being left alone. She testified that when Wells emerged, she was visibly upset and told her she had been raped. Langan also confirmed the bizarre incident with the underwear and that she suggested they leave and not go to dinner, but that Wells, seeming like a “shell of herself,” went along with the plan to go to the restaurant.
Francesca Angelucci (Pseudonym): A high school friend of “Isa Brooks,” Angelucci was called as an outcry witness. She testified that in the days after the 2009 Hamptons trip, Brooks told their friend group that she had been “hooking up” with a guy before “all these guys just came in the room.” Angelucci did not recall Brooks using the words “rape,” “assault,” or “drugged” during that conversation.