A fixer for Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to arrange a meeting for one of Bill Gates’ lovers at City Hall in London.
The billionaire Microsoft co-founder has accused Epstein of plotting to blackmail him over his extramarital affairs.
Giving evidence earlier this month to the United States House oversight committee’s probe into padeophile financier Epstein, Gates told how he had affairs with two Russian women, Karima Nigmatulina, a nuclear physicist, and Mila Antonova, a bridge player.
He also revealed that he had had a third affair with medical entrepreneur Alice Jacobs Nesselrodt.
Ms Nigmatulina travelled to London in October 2012 shortly after being appointed deputy director of Moscow's city planning office, according to emails in the Epstein files, The Times reported.
Epstein is said to have asked his fixer David Stern to arrange a meeting for her with officials at City Hall then under Boris Johnson in his second term as London Mayor.
"I need to organise that Karima Nigmatulina who is in charge of city planning of Moscow (she reports to Mayor of Moscow) meets someone (anyone — can be junior) in the office of London Mayor who is doing similar things — zoning and planning of city of London [sic]," Epstein allegedly wrote to Stern.
"It can be just a short meeting. It can be someone junior — it does not matter — it just matters that this meeting happens!” he added.
Mr Stern reportedly responded two days later saying he had arranged a meeting with two senior planning officials.
It is not clear if the meeting ever took place.
City Hall has found no documents to show it did but its records only go back eight years.
Gates told the oversight committee on the Epstein files: "I was not blackmailed" but "as you look at these emails, you know, it looks like Mr Epstein's brainstorming was going in that direction".
He said he never discussed Epstein with the disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, but said the paedophile financier “weirdly” kept a picture of the pair of them together at an official function.
Mr Gates acknowledged in a behind-closed-doors session that meeting Epstein, who was sentenced to prison in 2008 for soliciting a child for prostitution, “was a grave error in judgment” but said the relationship was limited to philanthropy and denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of the sex predator’s abuse of girls.
The undated image of Mr Gates with the former royal, both wearing suits and ties in an apparently formal setting, was among those from Epstein’s personal collection shared by Democrats on the oversight committee at the end of last year.
Andrew stepped down as trade envoy in 2011, where he earned the nickname “Air Miles Andy” for his lavish globetrotting, amid controversy over his continued friendship with Epstein, who cultivated ties to wealthy and powerful figures.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan, New York, in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled as a suicide.
His accomplice, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the US for luring young girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.
Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, had accused Andrew of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager after being trafficked by Epstein.
He has strongly denied this but in 2022 reached an out-of-court settlement with her, despite claiming never to have met her.
The King last year stripped his brother of his royal titles after fresh revelations about his Epstein ties and Andrew was forced to leave his Windsor mansion and move to the monarch’s private Sandringham estate in Norfolk.
The scandal also saw Lord Peter Mandelson fired as UK ambassador to the US.
Both Andrew and the peer were arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over their connections with Epstein.
They were subsequently released under investigation and deny any wrongdoing.
