EXCLUSIVE: "Bill Was Fun" — The Federal Record of Bill Gates's Trip to West Palm Beach — and What Came Next
Five independent documents confirm the March 2013 visit. What surrounds it in the federal archive is the story no one has told in full.
In 2013, the world’s wealthiest man flew to a convicted sex trafficker’s estate on his private plane. The federal documents show what surrounded that visit — and what was signed five months later.
Let’s be precise about who Jeffrey Epstein was in March 2013.
He was not a controversial figure with a complicated past. He was not a wealthy man under a cloud of suspicion.
He was a convicted sex offender who had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution — a charge whose language tells you everything about who the system was protecting. The girl was a victim. The legal system called her a prostitute.
That charge was also one of the most lenient resolutions of a federal child sex trafficking investigation in American legal history. Federal prosecutors had identified 36 victims — 34 confirmed minors. They had a 53-page indictment ready. None of it was ever filed. (EFTA01051095) Instead, Epstein served thirteen months in a Palm Beach County jail, during which he was permitted to leave six days a week. He registered as a sex offender. He remained under federal supervision.
And while all of that was on the public record — while more than thirty of his victims were still fighting in federal court for the right to be heard — the world’s wealthiest man flew to his house.
He was also, at this exact moment, the subject of an active federal civil rights case in which more than thirty women — most of them minors at the time of their abuse — were fighting in federal court for the right to be recognized as his victims. Those women had not been told the deal existed when it was made. The case was ongoing. The documents were sealed. The women were still waiting.
Not to a conference. Not to a foundation meeting. Not to a neutral venue.
To his house.
This is the story of that trip — documented by five independent sources — and everything the federal archive shows about what surrounded it.
Every document cited below is public. Every Bates number is retrievable at justice.gov/epstein.
The Man the World Was Still Choosing to Visit
By 2013, Epstein’s criminal history was not obscure. The Palm Beach Post had covered it. Court filings were available. He had registered as a sex offender. He was required by law to notify neighbors of his status. His victims’ lawsuit against the federal government was a matter of public record.
And yet the visits continued. Not from people who didn’t know. From people whose staffs coordinated with Epstein’s staff, whose security teams managed the logistics, whose executive administrators arranged the details.
The question this investigation asks is not whether the visits happened. They are documented beyond dispute. The question is what those visits looked like from the inside — and what they were connected to.
The Scheduling Note That Precedes Everything
Before March 2013, there is December 2010.
On November 28, 2010 — two years after Epstein’s conviction, two years after his sex offender registration — Epstein’s household assistant Lesley Groff received a scheduling note from her employer:
“6th now.. girls should be from 5-7 gates from 7-”
She replied: “ok, great. thanks”
Lesley Groff would later be indicted on federal sex trafficking conspiracy charges.
The document does not tell us what happened during the 5-7 block on December 6, 2010. It tells us how the evening was described, in writing, by the people organizing it: two hours described as “girls,” followed by Gates arriving at 7.
This is the operational context into which Gates was stepping. Not in 2019, when none of this was public. In 2010. Two years after the conviction. Two years after registration. While the victims’ lawsuit was active in federal court.
