Newly released emails from the U.S. Department of Justice have exposed that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed in Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan apartment, Apartment 11J on the Upper East Side, from 2015 to 2019—a period spanning years after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor and up until weeks before his July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
Hundreds of emails reviewed by Haaretz reveal Epstein's staff routinely prepared the residence for Barak and his wife, referring to it as "Ehud's apartment." In one 2015 message, an employee noted, "this slowly is becoming his apartment." Barak's wife, Nili Priel Barak, served as the primary contact, coordinating arrivals, grocery shopping, cleaning schedules, flowers, faster internet service, a piano installation, and other upgrades with Epstein's employees and personal assistant.
Security measures were extensive during Barak's stays. An Israeli security officer affiliated with Israel's diplomatic mission in New York controlled the alarm systems and apartment access. Epstein's staff were required to provide identification before entering, and no one was allowed inside without prior authorization to disable the alarm.
Barak has acknowledged staying in the apartment "from time to time" but has denied any involvement with Epstein's women. The visits occurred before Barak briefly returned to Israeli politics ahead of the 2019 Knesset election.
Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre, in her 2025 memoir Nobody's Girl, alleges that a "well-known prime minister"—with past court filings pointing to Barak—raped and brutally assaulted her in 2002 on Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Giuffre, who was 18 at the time, described being instructed by Epstein to accompany the politician to a secluded cabana.
Giuffre detailed the horrific encounter: "He repeatedly choked me until I lost consciousness and took pleasure in seeing me in fear for my life. Horrifically, the Prime Minister laughed when he hurt me and got more aroused when I begged him to stop. I emerged from the cabana bleeding from my mouth, vagina and anus." Despite her pleas to Epstein not to send her back, he arranged for her to fly to the politician again aboard his infamous Lolita Express private jet, though the second encounter was less physically violent.
The extreme trauma led Giuffre to refuse recruiting more girls for Epstein's trafficking network, a role she had been forced into for years alongside accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein, a convicted sex offender and financier, operated an international sex trafficking ring involving underage girls with ties to powerful elites.
