Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a division head at the Israel National Cyber Directorate, was arrested in a police sting operation aimed at online users seeking to sexually prey on children. The Las Vegas outlet 8NewsNow reported that Alexandrovich chatted with an officer posing as a teenager online before being arrested.

“The sexual contact included bringing a condom and taking the decoy to ‘Cirque du Soleil’,” which stages elaborate shows along the Las Vegas Strip, said police documents seen by 8NewsNow.

Details of the arrest came as the state department denied the US government played any role in releasing the Israeli official – after Alexanderovich was able to return to Israel once he had bonded out of jail in connection with the felony charge.

A swarm of commentary online, propelled in part by Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, speculated that the government had shielded Alexanderovich at a time when the Trump administration had been struggling to contain criticism over unfulfilled promises to release all files related to the prosecution of the late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“The Department of State is aware that Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, an Israeli citizen, was arrested in Las Vegas and given a court date for charges related to soliciting sex electronically from a minor,” the state department wrote on X.

“He did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge pending a court date. Any claims that the US government intervened are false.”

That statement came after Greene, who has recently broken with the White House over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, questioned Alexandrovich’s case on Monday, claiming that the government had “release[d] a child sex predator from Israel who works directly under the prime minister of Israel”, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Abramovich was arrested as he arrived at an agreed-upon location for the meet-up, 8NewsNow reported. He told police he believed he was chatting with an 18-year-old.

“Alexandrovich stated he felt the girl ‘pushed’ him to talk about bringing a condom, yet could not remember how many times the girl ‘pushed’ him,” police documents seen by 8NewsNow said.

“Alexandrovich stated he was embarrassed for being arrested.”

Court records reviewed by Reuters show a $10,000 bond was posted in Alexandrovich’s case at the Henderson detention center, south-east of Las Vegas, on 7 August. The records indicate he is due back in court on 27 August.

A post on Israel’s government website from November describes Alexandrovich as the “head of the Technological Defense Division at the INCD [Israel National Cyber Directorate]”. A screenshot on Alexanderovich’s LinkedIn page, first reported by Mediaite, describes him as the same. A post on Alexandrovich’s page alluded to his having been in Las Vegas earlier in August for the Black Hat Briefings, a yearly meeting of cybersecurity professionals.

“Two things you can’t escape at Black Hat 2025: the relentless buzz of generative [artificial intelligence] and the sound of Hebrew … in every corridor,” Alexandrovich wrote in part in an accompanying post. Invoking an abbreviation for large language models and referring to one of Israel’s largest cities, the post continued: “The key takeaway? The future of cybersecurity is being written in code, and it seems a significant part of it is being authored in #TelAviv and powered by LLMs. An exciting time to be in the field!”

That LinkedIn page under Alexandrovich’s name has since been deleted.

Israeli media reported in recent days that Alexanderovich had been released and was back in Israel, with some quoting Netanyahu’s office as denying that Alexandrovich was arrested, saying only that a “state employee” was “questioned by American authorities during his stay” and he had “returned to Israel as scheduled”. The Israeli news site Ynet reported that Alexandrovich was on leave from the Cyber Directorate by “mutual decision”.

Alexanderovich was among eight men in an operation led by Nevada’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

All of the suspects believed they were meeting minors when undercover officers instead confronted and arrested them, police said.

The arrested men were all brought to jail after being detained, said the statement from the Las Vegas metropolitan police department, which participated in the operation alongside local, state and federal law enforcement officials.

Among the other suspects was Las Vegas Redemption church pastor Neal Harrison Creecy, 46, 8NewsNow reported. Creecy reportedly believed he would meet a 14-year-old boy when he was arrested, and he resigned after posting a $10,000 bond for his release from jail.

Under Nevada law, luring a child with a computer for a sex act can carry between one to 10 years in prison.

Ramon Antonio Vargas and Reuters contributed reporting