Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates testified before a US congressional committee that he was blackmailed by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, DPA reported.
Epstein knew about Gates' extramarital affairs and used that information to pressure him, the billionaire said yesterday during a voluntary hearing before the US House of Representatives oversight committee.
Seventy-year-old Gates said Epstein also tried to force him to resume contact with him, but that attempt failed. "Although he may have been trying to establish a personal relationship with me, I was not interested in doing so at all and never responded to his advances," he said.
In a prepared statement quoted by several US media outlets, Gates said he met Epstein in 2011 but cut off contact with him in 2014 after Epstein promised to secure billions of dollars in donations for global health projects, a promise that never materialized.
"If my time with Epstein helped him appear trustworthy, I deeply regret it," Gates said in a statement.
The committee hearing was held behind closed doors and was not videotaped.
The US House Oversight Committee was tasked with investigating the sex trafficking ring abuses of financier Epstein, who died in prison in 2019.
The New York multimillionaire was at the head of a network of abuses that victimized many women and minors. Epstein is alleged to have personally abused minors for several years.
According to media reports, Gates admitted that his meeting with Epstein was a “serious error of judgment“. He said he never witnessed any criminal behavior. “I never went to his island, to his ranch or to his home in Florida. I never abused anyone,“ he added.