JERUSALEM — When Ehud Barak’s wife needed the security system upgraded at a Manhattan apartment owned by a company connected to Jeffrey Epstein, the man brought in to install it was not a contractor. He was a former security director for Israel’s mission to the United Nations.
That arrangement, described in documents released by the United States Department of Justice in February 2026, sits at the center of the court-ordered Epstein file disclosure that has drawn the most sustained attention to former Israeli Prime Minister Barak’s relationship with the convicted sex offender. It places a figure from Israel’s government security apparatus inside a property tied to Epstein, at the request of a former prime minister’s household.
Rafi Shlomo, identified in the DOJ files as a former security director for Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations, installed window sensors and a remote-access security system at 301 East 66th Street in Manhattan in early 2016. The building is owned by a company linked to Epstein’s brother Mark. Barak’s wife, Nili Priell, used an apartment there as a personal residence. A message from Priell cited in the documents notes that “they can neutralize the system from far,” a reference to the remote-access capability Shlomo had configured. Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff confirmed in a separate message that “Jeffrey says he does not mind holes in the walls,” approving the installation work.
The February release, part of ongoing civil litigation stemming from Epstein’s crimes, includes more than 6,000 references to Barak across emails, calendar entries, and flight records. Fifteen flight logs place him aboard Epstein’s aircraft. Forty-three emails document their direct correspondence. By the documents’ count, Barak visited Epstein approximately 30 times between 2013 and 2017, a period that falls entirely after Epstein’s 2008 Florida conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. The DOJ has separately defended redactions in related Epstein file proceedings, declining to unredact certain names by a court-ordered deadline.
The business dimension of the relationship is substantial. Barak chaired Carbyne, a 911-technology startup that received direct funding from Epstein. He was also connected to Light and Strong, a drone manufacturer, and to Parasight, a medical diagnostics company later rebranded as Sight Diagnostics. All three were active during the years Barak was meeting Epstein regularly. The financial arrangements between Epstein and those ventures have not been formally audited in any public proceeding.
Audio recordings included in the document release add texture to those dealings. In one, Barak and Epstein discuss Tony Blair’s consultancy fees, with Barak describing the sums as “gigantic.” In another, Barak discusses Israeli immigration patterns. Neither recording has been cited by investigators as evidence of a crime.
The files also include a claim from an FBI confidential human source asserting that Epstein had been “trained as a spy” under Barak. That assertion was attributed to Charles C. Johnson, a far-right provocateur with a documented history of legal disputes and fraud allegations, context that significantly complicates the weight of the claim. No formal American or Israeli investigation has examined it.
A footnote in the files describes Epstein suggesting in May 2013 that Barak arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting did not take place; a Putin intermediary declined the approach, and no contact between Barak and Putin through Epstein’s facilitation was established.
Barak, who served as Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and as defense minister until 2013, has not been accused of involvement in Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors. He faces no criminal charges. In statements following earlier document releases, he said he regretted not investigating Epstein more carefully and maintained he “did not know the manner of his crimes until 2019.”
His only disclosed visit to Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James in the United States Virgin Islands, came in December 2014, a single three-hour stop made with his wife and three security guards. The documents do not describe what occurred during that visit.
The introduction between the two men traces, by accounts that circulated after Epstein’s 2019 arrest, to former Israeli President Shimon Peres, who reportedly brought them together at a Washington event in 2003, according to The Guardian.
What the public record has not established is whether Israeli state institutions knew of or had any role in Shlomo’s security installation work at the 66th Street apartment. His prior position at the UN mission was a formal government security role; the work for Barak’s personal residential arrangement occupied different ground. Barak’s office did not respond to questions about the February 2026 disclosures before publication.
