In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Melanie Walker is among the small group of close Epstein associates who, like Boris Nikolic, haven't been tainted by him and continue in the financial and philanthropic upper crust. Her current official thumbnail reads: MD clinically specialized in Endovascular Neurosurgery and Vascular Neurology, with post-doctoral studies in computational neuroscience. Formerly: Neurotechnology and brain science adviser to William H Gates III at bgC3; Director, World Bank Group; Deputy Director for Global Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Adviser for Macroeconomics and Health, World Health Organization; practitioner in the developing world. Currently: Rockefeller Fellow and Clinical Associate Professor, University of Washington School of Medicine. Author of numerous peer reviewed publications. Member, Executive Board, American Medical Association Foundation. Young Global Leader and co-chair for the Global Future Council on Neurotechnology and Brain Science, World Econom...

According to the New York Post , a Boeing 727 belonging to one of Jeffrey Epstein's companies, which has tail number N908JE, is parked in a long-term storage area at Brunswick Golden Isles Airport in southeastern Georgia. This plane, which was given the nickname Lolita Express, was just one of four helicopters and three planes Epstein owned . Other accounts say it is in derelict condition, with engines and other parts removed. The photo above is from the UK Sun and is purportedly of this plane, but the tail number has been retouched out. According to the Post link, "A record of its last flight shows the plane took off from West Palm Beach, then zig-zagged above Florida before touching down at the Georgia airport more than four years ago." This suggests to me that in spite of Epstein's efforts to rehabilitate his reputation via figures like Bill Gates, his prior lifestyle before his 2008 arrest had become at least in part unsustainable. Removal of the engin...

One thing I find nore and more puzzling is that, at least on the web, there's no single "who's who" of the ever-widening circle of names surrounding Epstein. (If someone knows of such a thing, I'll be very grateful to hear of it.) Today I want to look at one of the few whose association with the guy hasn't resulted in job loss or similar calamity, Boris Nikolic. He's in the far right of the well-known 2011 photo of Gates with Epstein, Larry Summers, and Jes Staley. In the famous photo, Nikolic comes off as a thuggish-looking James Bond villain. That he's named Boris doesn't help. But in other photos, he's housebroken and sincere. Which is it? His current position app;ears to be Managing Direcor of Biomatics Capital, where his thumbnail reads, Dr. Nikolic is a physician and investor who previously served as chief advisor for science and technology to Bill Gates, leading select for-profit and not-for-profit investment acti...

Via The Daily Beast, which broke the story : Gates hoped the well-connected pervert could help him secure the Nobel Peace Prize, one former Gates Foundation employee told The Daily Beast. This person said members of the foundation’s communications team were alerted to Gates’ relationship with Epstein and were told it “was a maneuver to try to get himself a Nobel Peace Prize.” They said the tech mogul had even kept some employees on call on prize day in years past just in case he was awarded the distinction. “We were aware of things that were potential reputational risks for the foundation and the co-chairs, Bill and Melinda,” said the former employee. “Even back then, people knew this guy wasn’t squeaky clean,” the person said, referring to Epstein. Although much of the dirt on Gates and his ties to Epstein seems to come from Melinda's allies (like the quotes above), other information suggests Melinda was copacetic with Gates's effort to get the prize via Epste...

The real question about Jeffrey Epstein has little to do with the Lolita Express, the private island, and the underage girls, although the prosecutions were over the nymphets alone, and the rest has been the focus of the tabloid news. But a much bigger question is how Epstein got his money in the first place, and, since there's a high likelihood that this involved fraud and blackmail, how much he stole, and maybe more important, from whom. One potential early source of money was Les Wexner. This story in The New Republic gives details: The founder and former chairman of L Brands, which includes stores like The Limited and Victoria’s Secret, Wexner was Epstein’s longtime friend and key enabler. A serial liar and cunning manipulator, Epstein sometimes approached women claiming to be a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret. He said he was a money manager for billionaires, but Wexner was his only confirmed client. After meeting Epstein in the mid-1980s, Wexner eventually gave him...

The big current developmemt in the Bill Gates story, as we're expected to believe it, is that Gates left the Microsoft board as a result of a 20 year old consensual affair with a subordinate that ended amicably. There appears to be no disagreement that this affair took place, and Gates's spokespeople acknowledge it. So let's put on the brakes. "Consensual" affairs in the workplace between superior and subordinate are common as dirt. Companies may or may not have policies governing them specifically, but in practice, they're handled on a case by case basis, with the organization usually looking the other way until it's absolutely necessary to take some action, which often as not just involves transferring one or both parties to separate them. A "consensual" affair in and of itself is not "sexual harassment", which strictly speaking is a quid pro quo requirement that the subordinate put out or be subject to adverse action from the sup...

I found the photo above, which is pretty well known, in a current Dsily Mail story . The caption to the photo in that story reads, Bill Gates is pictured at Epstein's Manhattan mansion in 2011, from left: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; Epstein; Gates and Boris Nikolic, who was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's science adviser It goes without saying that each of the men in that photo is deeply compromised. For instance, Boris Nikolic, identifed as the Gates foundation science adviser, seems actually to have been Epstein's man : Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender, signed a will detailing nearly $600 million in assets just two days before he killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell. In the will, he named biotech venture capitalist Boris Nikolic as “successor executor,” the person who would take control of the estate if the two named executors are unable or unwilling to. Nikolic,...