Billionaire Bill Gates told a House Oversight Committee hearing on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that the controversial financier was “going to blackmail” him over affairs with two Russian women while the Microsoft co-founder was still married.
Gates claimed that he never told Epstein about his novels, but suggested that his scientific adviser Boris Nikolic passed information to the financier. He knew about these connections because of their close relationship, including once the entrepreneur used a meeting with Nikolic as an alibi for a date with one of the women.
The billionaire had an affair with bridge player Mila Antonova and nuclear physicist Karima Nigmatulina. During the interview, Gates admitted that he had at least two extramarital affairs, although, according to him, these women were not victims of Epstein. As RTVI.US reported, one of the financier’s letters claims that the Microsoft founder allegedly intended to secretly drug his wife Melinda with antibiotics in order to hide a sexually transmitted infection allegedly acquired after contact with “Russian girls.”
Information about the infidelity caused the couple to divorce in 2021 after 27 years of marriage, then the woman received $8 billion from the entrepreneur. Melinda complained about Gates’ harassment of colleagues and his connections with a sex offender. After the billionaire tried to break off relations with Epstein in 2014, he said, the financier tried to return to his life, in particular using information about the extramarital affairs of the Microsoft co-founder.
“He [Джеффри Эпштейн] made veiled threats like “we should remain friends,” but I decided not to change the proposal I made to stop communicating. And I have made it clear that I will take responsibility for any disclosures that may arise,” Gates said in the affidavit.
At a closed hearing, the entrepreneur separately called his acquaintance with Epstein a “serious mistake.” He knew about the financier’s conviction for sexual crimes, and at the same time communicated with him at business dinners to find investors. The billionaire denies visiting his home, ranch and island in Florida.
“I knew he had a criminal record. I knew that it was connected to crimes of a sexual nature, but no, I didn’t go into details, although I probably should have,” Gates said.
Asked about photographs of him with some of Epstein's victims, Gates said the sex offender sometimes asked him to take pictures with women he said were merely the financier's assistants. The latter was twice accused of sex crimes against minors – first in the state of Florida, where he was sentenced to a year and a half in prison in 2008.
Then in 2019, the financier was arrested on new charges, this time of sex trafficking of minors. He was later found dead in his cell in New York without receiving a trial. Congress demanded that the “Epstein files,” overgrown with conspiracy theories due to possible connections with the celebrity sex offender, be declassified, and the law was signed by US President Donald Trump, who had communicated with the financier in the past.
