‘Playing with fire’: Epstein bankrolled Bill Gates’ reported ex-girlfriend for years—then asked Gates to ‘reimburse’ him five months before he died

“Playing with fire.”

So read an April 30, 2018 email Jeffrey Epstein sent to Bill Gates’ chief of staff, Larry Cohen, according to files released by the Department of Justice. 

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 “a relationship” with Gates around 2010, and has been reported elsewhere to have been his mistress, had been receiving financial help from Epstein for years.