Washington DC: Reputations of dozens of celebrities have been under the spotlight ever since American financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was indicted, and skeletons tumbled out of the cupboard.
The Epstein files, consisting of millions of pages of documents, images and videos detailing his criminal activities and the link with public figures from all fields.
As the latest batch of files, related to the investigation into Epstein, was released by the US Justice Department on Friday, claims involving Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates resurfaced, including allegations about an alleged sexually transmitted disease (STD).
Among the newly-released documents are draft emails focusing on Gates, that appear to have been written by Epstein. There are claims accusing Gates of trying to conceal an STD from former wife Melinda French Gates, following alleged sexual encounters with women described as ‘Russian girls.’
Gates firmly rejected the claims, with a spokesperson calling them “absolutely absurd and completely false.”
Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019, was apparently making the claims in a draft statement on behalf of Gates’ longtime science adviser Boris Nikolic.
“I have been asked and wrongly acquiesced into participating in things that have ranged from the morally inappropriate, to the ethically unsound and had been repeatedly asked to do other things that get near and potentially over the line into the illegal. From helping Bill to get drugs, in order to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls, to facilitating his illicit trysts, with married women, to being asked to provide adderall fro (sic) bridge tournaments I feel I owe it to my friends and futre (sic) colleagues to admit a moral failure, to ask forgiveness and to move on with my life,” the email read.
In another draft email addressed to Gates, Epstein — again writing as Nikolic — accused the tech billionaire of attempting to stage a ‘cover-up’ to protect his public image. Gates is alleged to have asked for antibiotics so they could be given to Melinda without her knowledge, and urged the deletion of emails referring to an alleged STD.
“You implore me to please delete the emails regarding your STD, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda…”
The draft email said if Melinda were to file for a public divorce, it could hurt a pledge programme by billions of dollars. “I am concerned that if Melinda decides as you said to file for a public divorce, the damage done to the pledge programme alone would result in billions of dollars of money no longer being used for social good as I’m sure that some wives and husbands would feel free to retreat from their commitments.”
The released document also revisits reports of Epstein threatening to expose Gates’ alleged affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova in 2017.
Gates’ spokesperson stated that the only thing these documents demonstrate is “Epstein’s frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame.”
