An investigation by Drop Site News published last week revealed that the Israeli government installed and maintained a security and surveillance system inside a Manhattan apartment building effectively controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. The system was installed after Epstein’s 2008 conviction and maintained for years.
Emails released in the last batch of Epstein files by the Department of Justice show that Israeli officials began installing security equipment in early 2016 at 301 East 66th Street. The building contains 200 units and “has been home for years to young models, girlfriends, pilots and lawyers” associated with Epstein, Business Insider reported on August 5, 2019, just days before Epstein’s life ended inside New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.
The building itself was technically owned by a company tied to Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, but court filings and property records show that Jeffrey Epstein exercised effective control over multiple units in the building. As previously reported by Business Insider and documented in sworn depositions, apartments at 301 East 66th Street were used to house underage girls, associates and employees connected to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
The building was also where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed while visiting Epstein. The emails uncovered by Drop Site show that officials from Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations coordinated directly with Epstein’s staff to install alarms, window sensors and remote access controls at what was referred to in the email’s as “Ehud’s apartment.”
The emails show that Rafi Shlomo, then director of protective services at the Israeli mission to the United Nations and head of Barak’s security detail, personally controlled access to the apartment. Shlomo even conducted background checks on cleaners at the building and coordinated the installation of security equipment.
Emails released by the DOJ show that Epstein personally approved the installation of the Israeli security system. “Jeffrey says he does not mind holes in the walls and this is all just fine!” one assistant wrote during the coordination process.
The implications of the Drop Site reporting are profound. By 2016, Jeffrey Epstein was not an obscure “financier.” He was a registered sex offender in Florida following his “sweetheart” federal non-prosecution agreement. Court filings, sworn depositions and police reports had already linked apartments at the 66th Street building to underage girls and individuals accused of facilitating Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
Business Insider documented that multiple units in the building were used to house young women, including foreign minors recruited through Jean-Luc Brunel’s MC2 Models. Brunel, who also had an apartment inside the building, died in jail in France in February 2022, while awaiting trial on charges of rape of a minor over 15 and trafficking. Records show that several women later named as co-conspirators shared the address as well.
During this same period, Israeli state security officials were installing and managing surveillance equipment inside the building. Police were frequently present outside the property during certain visits.
The building itself traces back to billionaire Les Wexner, Epstein’s only publicly acknowledged client for decades, who transferred significant New York real estate assets to Mark Epstein in the early 1990s. Wexner famously granted Jeffrey Epstein sweeping power of attorney over his finances.
Wexner has maintained that his relationship with Epstein was strictly professional. However, photographs and public records show a longstanding and close association, including joint appearances at social events.
As of this writing, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post nor the major broadcast networks have reported on the Israeli government’s installation of a state security system inside a building linked to Epstein’s sex trafficking operations, even though Al Jazeera and other international outlets have picked up the story based on Drop Site’s investigation
This absence is part of a broader pattern in which corporate media has either dismissed or actively defended limits on transparency in the Epstein case. The corporate press has moved rapidly from dismissing scrutiny of the Epstein files as “conspiracy theory” to openly arguing that the public should never have seen the material at all. In a February 23 guest essay, the New York Times declared that “the Epstein files should never have been released,” warning that those who “want to preserve” the Justice Department’s “coercive information-gathering tools” should “regret the dump of the Epstein files.”
Transparency is dangerous not because the material is false, but because it weakens public confidence in the capitalist state and its “justice” system. The concern is not the exposure of ruling class networks surrounding Epstein but the potential erosion of public trust in the police and the intelligence agencies that facilitated Epstein’s operations.
The attempt by the corporate press to squash the files comes as Trump’s Justice Department continues to obscure and remove images and documents that damage the administration. Files that were previously accessible through the Department of Justice’s Epstein Transparency Act portal are now returning “Page not found” errors.
The independent archivists at Jmail discovered one such file, listed in Dataset 9 as EFTA01230639. The image shows Jeffrey Epstein and at least three other men at an outdoor location, one of whom bears a striking resemblance to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The Department of Justice has offered no explanation for the removal of this file or others like it from its publicly searchable archive.