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Ohad Fisherman, a former real estate associate and friend of the infamous Alexander brothers, is working to rehabilitate his image after Miami Beach police dropped a sexual battery charge against him.
Fisherman (also known as the New York Hummus Hunk) on Friday filed a defamation lawsuit against the Miami Herald, real estate publication the Real Deal, WPLG Local 10, and WSVN 7 News for linking him to Tal, Alon, and Oren Alexander’s federal sex trafficking cases in New York and Florida. Fisherman argues he built a career on successfully closing several multimillion-dollar real estate deals before news outlets “rushed to cover every aspect of (the Alexander brothers’) jaw-dropping story” and linked him to their crimes. He’s suing the outlets in Miami-Dade County court for more than $100,000, arguing the news outlets erroneously connected him to the broader sex-trafficking allegations.
“In connection with an alleged 2016 New Year’s Eve incident — entirely separate from any sex trafficking charges against the Alexander brothers — plaintiff was wrongfully charged by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office in December 2024 with one count of sexual battery,” according to the lawsuit, referring to now-dropped charges. “However, multiple media outlets, including defendants in this case, equated the singular charge against plaintiff as being interwoven with the larger sex-trafficking prosecution against the Alexander brothers.”
The Real Deal’s founder and publisher, Amir Korangy, said in a statement to New Times that the publication “reported fairly and accurately on the allegations against Mr. Fisherman, on his arrest, and ultimately on the withdrawal of the case against him by the Florida State prosecutor.”
“His desperate claims lack any conceivable merit,” Korangy continued.
The other news outlets named in the suit did not immediately respond to New Times’ requests for comment.
A New York federal court last week convicted the Alexander brothers of sex trafficking in a high-profile case. The brothers, however, still face multiple allegations of sexual battery here in South Florida, including in the case that originally included Fisherman as a defendant. Fisherman had to cut short his honeymoon in Japan to face the charge, according to the Miami Herald. It is not clear from court records how authorities initially linked him to the assault; he is wrongly identified in the records as the twins’ cousin.
According to the lawsuit, Miami-Dade County withdrew the charge July 2025 after Fisherman produced a credible alibi confirming he wasn’t present for the alleged assault. A video Fisherman posted on his Facebook page showed him on a boat around the time of the alleged assault, NBC 6 reported, and prosecutors said they could no longer prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
“For nearly a year, I’ve been dragged through the mud, arrested, and labeled a monster based on lies,” Fisherman said at a press conference soon after.
The lawsuit says that each defendant published updates about the dropped charges but their previous stories including defamatory statements were still available online. The suit claims that those news pieces, read in their entirety, gave the impression that Fisherman was a co-conspirator of the Alexander brothers and involved in “multiple predatory acts.”
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