Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has apologized for his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and admitted to having two affairs with Russian women while married to his former wife, Melinda French Gates.

In a town hall meeting with employees at the Gates Foundation this week, Gates stated he flew on private planes with Epstein and spent time with him in the U.S. and abroad but emphasized that he did not participate in any criminal activity.

“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit,” Gates said. “To be clear, I never spent any time with the victims, the women around him.”

Gates first met Epstein in 2011, after the financier was convicted in Florida for procuring children for prostitution, and continued to socialize with him despite concerns raised by his ex-wife.

The billionaire also detailed the affairs: “I did have affairs, one with a Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events, and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities.”

Gates’ marriage to Melinda French Gates ended in 2021 after she filed for divorce.

Additionally, in 2014, an engineer employed at the Gates family home was arrested for possessing thousands of images of child exploitation material. The individual, Rick Allen Jones, admitted to collecting and trading such materials online for years.

Jones, who worked at the Gates estate, was found by authorities to have been amassing a collection of 6,000 child pornography images. He was arrested in March 2014 after police tracked an image he shared through Google that captured sexual exploitation of pre-teen boys.

Investigators searched Jones’ apartment and eventually his home in Medina where he was found working at the time. Jones claimed he had shared child pornography only once but admitted to collecting it for a decade prior to his arrest.