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So read an April 30, 2018 email Jeffrey Epstein sent to Bill Gates\u2019 chief of staff, Larry Cohen, according to files released by the Department of Justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Epstein had just put up Mila Antonova in one of his Upper East Side apartments for the week, he told Cohen. Antonova, a Russian bridge player who told Fortune through her lawyer that she had \u201ca relationship\u201d with Gates around 2010, and has been reported elsewhere to have been his mistress, had been receiving financial help from Epstein for years. Epstein wanted Gates to know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In fact, Epstein had wanted Gates to know for a long time. <\/p>\n
Documents released in January by the DOJ show that between 2013 and at least 2018, Epstein helped organize Antonova\u2019s visa, wired her cash, housed her repeatedly in various apartments he kept in Manhattan, and paid for her coding education. Later, Epstein referred to those payments and pressured the billionaire founder of Microsoft to reimburse him, the emails show.<\/p>\n
In one exchange, Epstein invoked the \u201csanctity of friendship.\u201d In a July 29, 2017 email to Cohen, he quoted what he claimed were Gates\u2019 own words: \u201cIf you can help push this out three years that should be enough\u201d \u2014 a reference, Epstein said, to housing and bankrolling Antonova after her relationship with Gates ended. Three years had now passed, Epstein wrote. He had \u201cpaid for school, helped organize visa,\u201d and Antonova had \u201cto stop bridge tournaments, living day to day on a friends couch with no air con.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you and Bill share my views on the sanctity of friendship,\u201d he wrote to Cohen.<\/p>\n
The pressure campaign around the payments to Antonova was part of an extensive and complex effort by Epstein to bore his way into Gates\u2019 inner circle and to benefit from the Microsoft cofounder\u2019s contacts and influence. Fortune reported on that effort earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Antonova\u2019s attorney told Fortune she had neither knowledge of Epstein\u2019s efforts to pressure Gates, nor provided \u201cservices, information or any other assurance or act in exchange\u201d for his support. The lawyer said Antonova \u201cnaively accepted\u201d Epstein\u2019s help, believing he genuinely wanted to assist her.<\/p>\n
Five months before he was arrested for conspiring to sex-traffic minors in 2019, Epstein was still emailing Gates asking to be repaid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Gates has said consistently, he regrets meeting with Epstein,\u201d a spokesperson for Gates wrote to Fortune. \u201cThe files show just how extensively Epstein worked to insert himself into Gates\u2019 life\u2014both directly and through others in Gates\u2019 orbit\u2014and how Epstein continued in these efforts even after Gates stopped meeting and communicating with him. To be clear, Gates never witnessed or engaged in any illicit or illegal behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen, who was then not only Gates\u2019 chief of staff but also a managing partner at Gates\u2019 private office, Gates Ventures, did not respond to Fortune\u2019s request for comment. (Cohen is now at venture firm Biomatics Capital.)<\/p>\n
Antonova\u2019s attorney confirmed in a letter to Fortune that Antonova met Gates at a bridge tournament in 2009 and \u201cmaintained a relationship with him for a time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Mila happened\u2019<\/p>\n
Epstein\u2019s relationship with Antonova began with Boris Nikolic, then-Gates\u2019 chief science adviser at the Gates Foundation and at his investment firm, Bgc3. Nikolic was also one of Epstein\u2019s most frequent correspondents, with the two exchanging thousands of emails in the decade between 2009 up until Epstein\u2019s death in 2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
On May 23, 2013, Nikolic\u2014then still at the Gates Foundation\u2014emailed someone who appeared to be an immigration attorney about Antonova, describing her as a Russian friend who had \u201coverextended her stay in USA\u201d on a boat crew visa. The case, he wrote, would \u201cneed to be VERY creative,\u201d adding he was \u201cwilling to cover the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonova\u2019s attorney confirmed to Fortune that Nikolic referred her to an immigration attorney but disputed that he offered to cover the fees, instead saying Antonova and her \u201cthen-husband\u201d paid. Antonova\u2019s\u00a0last contact with Gates, according to her lawyers, was in May 2013\u2014around the time Nikolic reached out.<\/p>\n
That summer, according to the documents, Nikolic\u2019s own working relationship with Gates began to collapse. By September, he exited the foundation with a $5 million advance. In a late-night email to Epstein that November, Nikolic tried to piece together a timeline from his inbox of what had happened between himself and Gates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On May 22, the day before he emailed the immigration attorney, he wrote, \u201cMila happened.\u201d Three weeks later came a Paris meeting between Epstein and Gates that both men mention in the DOJ emails. A month after that, Nikolic said, Gates sent him an email about \u201cMelinda finding out\u201d and that their working relationship had to end.<\/p>\n
Epstein\u2019s reply came just after midnight: \u201cHe cries because he knows it is wrong. Not because he is sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEpstein was a master manipulator, and I deeply regret associating with him,\u201d Nikolic wrote in a statement to Fortune. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Gates later confirmed the affair. In a town hall last month with Gates Foundation staff, according to the Wall Street Journal, he told employees he \u201chad affairs\u201d\u2014including one \u201cwith a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events.\u201d He said Nikolic knew of the affairs and told Epstein about them.<\/p>\n
How it started<\/p>\n
On July 14, 2013\u2014in the middle of negotiating Nikolic\u2019s own exit from the Gates Foundation\u2014Epstein brought up Antonova with Nikolic for the first time in their correspondence: \u201cAsk the attorney that was helping Mila, for her status?\u201d By November, Epstein had meetings scheduled with both Nikolic and Antonova, DOJ documents show.<\/p>\n
Over the next year, Epstein funded at least part of Antonova\u2019s life. On Oct. 9, 2014, he emailed his accountant Richard Kahn with wire instructions for an entity called Bridge Union Inc.: \u201cRich send 7k this month to Mila and again next month.\u201d Emails between Epstein\u2019s assistant Leslie Groff, Antonova, and building staff also show Groff sending apartment details and door codes to apartments Epstein maintained in the Upper East Side.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is great,\u201d Antonova emailed Groff in late November 2014. \u201cThank you for accommodating me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonova\u2019s attorney confirmed Epstein made \u201cseveral unsolicited monetary gifts,\u201d paid for her coding education, and provided use of his apartment \u201cseveral times\u201d between 2014 and 2018. The lawyer added that Antonova met Epstein in person only twice, that he was never present during her stays, and that she had no reason to believe Epstein was using her situation as leverage.<\/p>\n
By mid-2016, Gates had stopped engaging with Epstein directly; his last email to Epstein in the DOJ documents is from December 2014. After that, all communications were filtered through Cohen, whom Epstein didn\u2019t trust and described as \u201cMelinda\u2019s boy\u201d in emails to Nikolic.<\/p>\n
Epstein\u2019s response was to make sure Gates knew the connection to Antonova was still alive. On June 15, 2016, he emailed Nikolic what appeared to be a message meant for Gates: \u201cYou can tell your boy that I still hear from Mila. I put her through computer school.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year later, on July 21, 2017, Antonova wrote to Epstein expressing gratitude: \u201cYou and Boris [Nikolic] have done an exceptional thing for me. Created an opportunity for me to grow and have control over my life.\u201d Their help was pivotal in leading to where she was then: sleeping in a friend\u2019s living room in Palo Alto, paying $700 a month for a couch, preparing for tech industry interviews thanks to her coding classes, all funded by Epstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next day, Epstein emailed Cohen, saying he had heard from \u201can old friend\u201d of Gates and that they should speak. He told Cohen he planned to keep spending money on \u201chis old friend\u201d but added he had \u201creceived neither thanks nor reimbursement.\u201d He gave Cohen a deadline: \u201cIf you think I shouldn\u2019t, let me know by tomorrow night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Your friend Bill is nuts\u2019<\/p>\n
Privately, Epstein was dumbfounded about getting the cold shoulder from Gates. On July 25, 2017, he wrote to Nikolic: \u201cYour friend Bill is nuts. His former girl. Can\u2019t afford air con, can\u2019t afford to travel to bridge\u2026 that story would take Trump off the front pages. The richest man in the world is so cheap, his former bridge girl and toy, lives on a friend\u2019s sofa. WOWO.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen sent Epstein an email that said Gates would soon give the \u201cnod\u201d for them to talk. But by Aug. 6, Epstein emailed again: \u201cNo acknowledgment from Bill??\u201d Cohen\u2019s response: \u201cHe\u2019s been off the grid for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
The silence stretched into December 2017, and Epstein shifted tactics. \u201cThe phrase is, I\u2019m about to run out of money,\u201d he emailed Cohen. Cohen reached out asking to talk, but Epstein was done with pleasantries. He replied that he had also emailed Gates directly\u2014\u201casking why I had no BG approval, nor offer to pay back what was advanced at his request. All odd.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April 2018, Antonova stayed in Epstein\u2019s apartment again. Building staff emailed Epstein\u2019s assistants to confirm a welcome letter had been left for \u201cMila Antanova arriving Thurs. April 26th.\u201d Days later, on April 30, Epstein emailed Cohen with the message that opened this story: \u201cFYI, I had to put up Mila in New York for the week. I was not there. Playing with fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Antonova\u2019s attorney said she had \u201cno knowledge of and cannot speculate about\u201d Epstein\u2019s communications with Cohen and no basis to believe Epstein was using her financial situation as leverage against Gates.<\/p>\n
The final ask<\/p>\n
On Jan. 5, 2019, Epstein emailed Gates directly: \u201cI think at some point you want to reimburse me\u2026 I feel awkward asking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four days later, he wrote to Gates and Cohen again, requesting a meeting: \u201cI think best that when Bill is on the East Coast, we set aside an hour to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear if Epstein ever received a response. Shortly after, he began assembling a paper trail, asking an associate to dig through \u201cpast photos and emails\u201d to establish when Epstein and Nikolic had first met Gates at an airport in Washington, D.C.\u2014an apparent reference to a meeting at Reagan National that Nikolic had helped arrange in December 2013.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 20, 2019, Epstein emailed Gates: \u201cI hope you follow Bezos\u2019 lead.\u201d It\u2019s not clear from the emails what Epstein meant. Ten days earlier, Jeff Bezos had announced his divorce from MacKenzie Scott shortly after the National Enquirer reported on Bezos\u2019 extramarital affair with Lauren Sanchez.<\/p>\n
Five months later, Epstein was arrested for conspiring to sex traffic minors. A month after that, he was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gates, who has not been charged with wrongdoing, was called on last week to testify before the House Committee on his ties with Epstein.<\/p>\n
#Playing #fire #Epstein #bankrolled #woman #tied #Bill #Gatesthen #asked #repaid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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