NEWS IN A NUTSHELL: Police open investigation into death of Prince Andrew's accuser, Maxwell amends petition, and Bill Gates reveals names of his ex-lovers
All the latest Epstein scandal developments from this week.
Good day to you all! The week so far has been an interesting one. I attended an Ivana Kupala festival in Kyiv, an ancient event that sees Ukrainians sing folk songs, jump over bonfires, and women weaving flower wreaths before casting them into lakes amidst muttered wishes. It was beautiful.
I also interviewed a new witness in the Epstein scandal, chased up some FOI requests relating to a potential murder, and unearthed more exclusive Epstein-related stories (I’ll be publishing these very shortly).
Now let’s jump into the week’s main Epstein-related headlines:
POLICE OPEN INVESTIGATION INTO DEATH OF VIRGINIA GIUFFRE
Western Australia’s police commissioner has confirmed that an investigation has been opened in which officers’ interactions with Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in the months before her death will be formally reviewed.
Giuffre died by suicide in April last year at the age of 41 at her rural home north of Perth. Her family has since called for a coronial inquest into the circumstances surrounding her death, a request that has also been supported by a coalition of specialists in domestic and family violence.
Earlier this month, 16 experts in the fields of domestic abuse, family violence and violence against women submitted an open letter to Western Australia’s coroner urging a comprehensive investigation.
The signatories argued that failing to closely examine whether public institutions “let Giuffre down” during the final months of her life would itself be a serious injustice.
They also suggested there were indications she may have experienced domestic violence before her death, with Giuffre herself alleging that her husband Robbie had been physically abusive.
Robbie successfully obtained a restraining order against Virginia Giuffre, while a judge removed Giuffre’s children from her custody over safety concerns.
According to the letter, the publicly available information about Giuffre’s final months closely mirrors patterns identified in research into domestic violence related deaths. The experts said a thorough inquest, conducted with those circumstances fully considered, could produce recommendations that extend well beyond Giuffre’s case and potentially help prevent similar tragedies in the future.
Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the internal review will specifically examine officers’ handling of “a dispute between Giuffre and a former partner”. That partner was Robbie Giuffre, and during that dispute, Giuffre was charged with breaching her restraining order.
Speaking before the Western Australia Parliament on Wednesday, Blanch confirmed the review was being initiated after receiving a letter from Giuffre’s family.
“We respond to over 100,000 family violence incidents every year,” Blanch told the hearing. “I’d love to give assurance on every single one, but I can’t. But that one will be subject to a review.”
Blanch added that the state’s coroner and the Ombudsman also have the authority to undertake their own independent investigations if they choose.
Meanwhile, the legal battle over Giuffre’s estate continues, with family members (and even a former cleaner) wriggling out of the woodwork in attempts to grab the late accuser’s cash.
Virginia Giuffre Wrote a Will Leaving Control of Her Millions to Her Lawyer and HOUSE CLEANER - Giuffre's Sons Accuse Them Of Exploiting Their 'Mentally Unfit' Mother
The battle over bucks continues, with numerous individuals - most of whom the public had never heard of during Giuffre’s controversial life - worming their way out of the woodwork upon her death to lay claim to her fortune .
You can read the last article I wrote about the legal wrangling over Giuffre’s estate by clicking on the above link. I’ll be posting an update very soon.
There is one question I’d like to be answered, however: While it’s good that Giuffre’s family have demanded an investigation into her death, why aren’t they demanding an investigation into the sexual abuse allegations Giuffre made against her own father?
More on that next week.
BILL GATES NAMES EX-LOVERS
During his closed-door, voluntary testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Bill Gates named three women whom he had affairs with while he was married to Melinda French. In a transcript for the interview, the Microsoft co-founder claimed that Jeffrey Epstein knew about his infidelity and alleged that Epstein may have been contemplating blackmailing him.
Gates, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has denied any “illicit” actions, spoke to the committee as part of an ongoing probe linked to the Justice Department’s Epstein Files release.
Gates stated that his association with Epstein was purely business-related.
“It was after this that I learned Epstein had become aware of sensitive information about my personal life, including the fact that I had been unfaithful in my marriage,” he said. “These affairs had nothing to do with my interactions with Epstein, but they were painful for my family.”
Emails I found in the Epstein Files, however, do show that Epstein knew at least two of the three women whom Gates had affairs with.
Gates, whose divorce was finalised in 2021 after 27 years of marriage, confirmed that he’d engaged in affairs with professional bridge player Mila Antonova and nuclear scientist Karima Nigmatulina.
Emails I reviewed earlier this month demonstrate Jeffrey Epstein attempting to facilitate, via Prince Andrew’s former associate David Stern, a meeting between Karima (who at the time held a senior position for planning and development in Moscow) with Boris Johnson’s office (Johnson was, at the time, the Mayor of London).
Despite insinuations in the media, there is no evidence to suggest that Johnson himself ever met Karima - in fact, emails instead document that a senior member of London’s planning department met with Gates’ Russian lover.
Some of you may recall that I wrote a fact-check article regarding David Stern, one of Epstein’s UK-based fixers - after I exposed that the BBC and other news outlets had falsely reported that Jeffrey Epstein may have had a baby. You can read that article below (Note: The BBC still hasn’t issued a correction, despite a BBC representative acknowledging to me in writing that their coverage was misleading):
EXCLUSIVE: The BBC Claimed Sarah Ferguson Congratulated Epstein On the Birth of His 'Secret Son' - I Found the Baby Scan, the Parents, and the Truth
The following headlines and excerpts have sent the international press and public into a frenzy of speculation this week, with fascinated readers now firmly believing that Jeffrey Epstein sired a secret son.
Of Gates’ affair with Mila Antonova, Epstein wrote in an email that Gates had essentially left her a penniless couch surfer.
Gates then identified doctor and medical entrepreneur Alice Jacobs Nesselrodt, whom he met at a conference, as being the third woman with whom he had an extramarital affair.
“Epstein was working to use information about my infidelities, in addition to many lies that he layered on top, to pressure me to re-engage with him,” Gates told the House Oversight Committee. “He was unsuccessful in this effort, but it shows some of the ways he tried to leverage his interactions with me to further his agenda. I should never have met with Epstein in the first place.”
“There was never an explicit, ‘Hey, if you don't do something, I will reveal this’,” the billionaire philanthropist asserted. “There was the veiled type of language, ‘Hey, should all want to be friends.’ And as I've said, I took that on very explicitly and said, ‘Look, if you think you're going to get more money out of this, it's not going to happen, and if that means you go out and talk to people about things, I will just bear the pain of that and deal with it.'”
Gates later added, "He never blackmailed me, but looking at these emails, it raises a serious probability that he contemplated blackmailing me."
The Epstein files show that Epstein wrote a series of bizarre emails/notes to himself (sometimes pretending to be Gates’ former advisor, Boris Nikolic), in which he alleged that Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted disease following “sex with Russian girls” and that he had asked for antibiotics to “surreptitiously give” to his then wife Melinda French Gates.
“In my role as his right hand I had been asked on mulitple occassion [sic] and in hindsight, 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,” Epstein wrote as Nikolic, presumably in the hope that he could get Nikolic to release the statement himself if needed, as part of a blackmailing scheme or smear campaign.
Boris Nikolic is a prominent biotech venture capitalist and former science advisor to Gates who became entangled in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Their relationship involved close social and professional ties, and Nikolic was controversially named in Epstein's final last will and testament. Nikolic was also the man who introduced Karima, Alice, and Mila to Epstein and Gates.
From emails within the Epstein Files, we learn that Epstein portrayed himself as holding compromising material and hinted at using it as leverage, particularly in the event of a public divorce that could harm Gates’ philanthropic image.
“I am concerned that if Melinda decides as you said to file for a public divorce, the damage done to the pledge program alone would result in billions of dollars of money no longer being used for social good as Im [sic] sure that some wives and husbands would feel free to retreat from their commitments,” he wrote.
The same email alleges that Gates “begged him” to delete emails regarding “your STD, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis.”
Responding to the release of the emails, a spokesperson for Gates said that the claims were “absolutely absurd and completely false. 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.”
You can read the full transcript of Gates’ testimony/interview below:
MAXWELL FILES AMENDED PETITION
Ghislaine Maxwell has claimed that newly-released evidence contained within the Epstein files further demonstrates that her constitutional rights were breached.
The 64 year old is attempting to overturn her December 2021 conviction in Manhattan federal court by seeking a writ of habeas corpus, a legal mechanism that allows courts to examine whether a person’s imprisonment is lawful.
In an amended habeas petition released on Wednesday, Maxwell argued that documents made public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act demonstrate that her right to due process was compromised. According to the filing, lawyers representing Epstein’s accusers operated as “de facto prosecutors” while working in close coordination with government officials.
As part of her argument, Maxwell cited a letter written by a former federal prosecutor, who stated, “I did what I could,” when describing efforts to help attorneys representing Epstein’s accusers challenge the 2007 non-prosecution agreement reached between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida.
Maxwell has long contended that the 2007 agreement should also have shielded her from criminal prosecution.
The amended petition highlights various startling flaws in her prosecution - including witness tampering and withheld evidence - and reveals fresh evidence supporting her claim of innocence. It also marks her broadest attempt so far to have her conviction overturned.
In response, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, whose office prosecuted Maxwell, urged the court to reject the petition, arguing in a filing released on Wednesday that several of her claims were submitted after the applicable legal deadlines had expired.
Clayton, however, appears to be misleading the court and the general public in this respect. A sibling of Ghislaine Maxwell told me this week that filings have been made on time, but that (as seen with earlier filings by Maxwell) the court has failed to upload and register them on time.
EPSTEIN SPEAKS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE - NEW DRAFT STATEMENT REVEALED
In case you missed it, this week I found another draft statement written by Jeffrey Epstein.
"I AM JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND I'M A HEDONIST" - Epstein speaks from beyond the grave as second unpublished statement unearthed
“These women, most of whom worked in local massage parlors and strip clubs, came to my house to give massages, often with a happy ending, sometimes more,” Jeffrey Epstein wrote in one of the statements he’d intended to release to the press (against the advice of his lawyers and his PR guy).
The statement is shocking and enlightening in equal measure, with Epstein confirming that he was a hedonist, but revealing that he was ‘stitched up’ by police and prosecutors.
EXCLUSIVE: READ A SHOCKING WITNESS STATEMENT CURRENTLY UNDER SEAL IN MAXWELL’S PETITION - YOU WON’T FIND THIS ANYWHERE ELSE
while investigating the Epstein scandal, I interviewed the mother of one of Virginia Giuffre’s victims. After this, she sat down with a notary and signed a witness statement that alleges bribes, false testimony, and a long history of abuse.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the important document came to be included in Ghislaine Maxwell’s habeas petition. It is currently under seal and the public are unable to view it. But considering I own the document, and for the sake of transparency, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to read the scanned, full 6-page document - and you can do so for the first time by clicking the PDF below: