A New Mexico investigative commission claims at least 35 women and girls were likely abused at Jeffrey Epstein's sprawling desert ranch, and the state is now suing the Justice Department for allegedly stonewalling the investigation.
The New Mexico Survivor's Truth Commission released a 119-page preliminary report detailing years of alleged sexual abuse at Epstein's Zorro Ranch, a 7,500-acre compound near Santa Fe. On the same day, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., against the Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, accusing the federal government of blocking the state's criminal investigation into what happened on the property.
The twin actions, the report and the lawsuit, paint a picture of systemic failure at every level of law enforcement. Local authorities deferred. State investigators looked the other way. Federal prosecutors in New York, AP News reported, left Epstein's New Mexico offenses "largely unexamined." And now, years after Epstein's 2019 death in a New York federal jail, the DOJ is refusing to hand over the records that might finally hold his co-conspirators accountable.
Epstein bought Zorro Ranch in 1993 from Bruce King, a former three-time New Mexico governor. The property sprawls across 13 square miles of high desert, anchored by a 26,700-square-foot hacienda. Epstein spent roughly 50 days a year there, usually in the summer. The commission's report describes a place where powerful guests could come and go far more discreetly than at Epstein's private Caribbean island, Little St. James.
The report outlined allegations from at least five anonymous "Jane Doe" victims. Jane Doe 3 said she was 15 years old in 2004 when she was flown to the ranch and sexually molested by Epstein for hours. The commission's report quoted her directly:
"What I remember most vividly was him explaining to me how beneficial the experience was for me."
After the alleged abuse, Jane Doe 3 recounted riding and crashing an ATV on one of the ranch's desert mesas. Jane Doe 4 compared the ranch to Disneyland and alleged she was trafficked there to have sex with Bill Richardson, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton and later as New Mexico's governor. An unnamed girl, quoted in the report through another victim's account, captured the culture of impunity in a single sentence: "Don't worry, no one gets in trouble for anything here."
Maria Farmer and her younger sister Annie visited the ranch in 1996, allegedly under the guise of an art commission. Annie Farmer has said she was 15 at the time. Both have alleged abuse by Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty of child sex trafficking in 2021 and is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence. Annie Farmer has alleged that Epstein and Maxwell directed her "to take off all her clothes and get on a massage table."
The commission's report describes Epstein's guest list as a catalog of the elite. Flight logs referenced in the report confirm visits by Richardson, filmmaker Woody Allen, Allen's wife Soon-Yi Previn, and linguist Noam Chomsky. A separate flight log cited in the report shows Bill Clinton as a passenger on an Epstein-owned plane bound for New Mexico, an allegation Clinton has long denied.
The report's language is blunt about the company Epstein kept:
"A record of his guests serves as a compendium of the rich, powerful, and influential: presidents, governors, cabinet secretaries, captains of industry and finance, Silicon Valley moguls, actors and celebrities, mavens of fashion and the arts, and academic, scientific, and other thought leaders of the highest caliber."
Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem was also identified as an Epstein guest at the ranch, based on emails previously released by the Justice Department. The commission concluded that Epstein was "repeatedly cultivating the support of powerful and influential people wherever he was."
The commission's sharpest criticism targets law enforcement at every level. Local authorities played what the report calls a "passive role" in investigating Epstein. While prosecutors in Miami and New York pursued criminal cases, New Mexico investigators deferred.
One finding stands out. After Epstein's 2008 Florida conviction for soliciting a prostitute, a felony that barred him from legally possessing firearms, he was still allowed to keep guns at Zorro Ranch. The commission found no evidence that New Mexico authorities ever inspected the property for firearms or investigated Epstein for unlawful possession. The report noted this omission could indicate preferential treatment and added that a timely firearms investigation "may have afforded law enforcement an opportunity to initiate an investigation and collect evidence that may have led to evidence of sex trafficking."
Few ranch employees were ever questioned. The report found "no record showing that many of the Zorro Ranch employees were ever interviewed by the FBI or other law enforcement." The commission identified some members of what it called Epstein's "extensive Zorro Ranch staff network," but acknowledged the full number "is certainly considerably larger." Among the few named: Brice and Karen Gordon, a New Zealand-born couple who managed both the ranch and Epstein's Virgin Islands property. Brice Gordon was interviewed by the FBI in February 2007.
State Rep. Marianna Anaya put the failure plainly at a hearing after the report went public. "Where was everyone?" she asked.
State Rep. Andrea Romero, a commission member, told the Daily Mail several months before the report's release that witnesses had come forward with disturbing allegations. She said witnesses "were drugged, had sex organs and sperm harvested from their bodies, and woke up around medical equipment not knowing where they were or what happened to them." Epstein had also reportedly discussed plans to use the ranch as a base to inseminate multiple women in a scheme to produce what he called an enhanced bloodline.
The commission investigated those claims. Its report found no evidence that Epstein's insemination scheme came to fruition and no evidence of nonconsensual medical procedures. The commission also looked into a 2019 FBI tip alleging the dead bodies of two foreign girls were buried at the ranch. State officials ordered a search with cadaver-detecting dogs in March. That search was described as fruitless. The report acknowledged that the full scope of Epstein's crimes "may never be known."
The commission was careful about the limits of its own findings. Regarding some individuals identified in its investigation, the report stated: "Too little is known about these individuals at this point to confirm necessary facts, some may be witnesses to abuse, but not survivors of it. Others may be facilitators of Epstein's abuse, and some may be both survivors and facilitators."
The commission was created by the New Mexico House of Representatives in February, given subpoena power and a $2 million budget. It issued 20 subpoenas, mostly to local, state, and federal agencies and to banks. Ten were met with full compliance. Two drew partial compliance. Eight were refused or went unanswered.
The biggest holdout is the federal government. New Mexico's lawsuit alleges the DOJ ignored or denied 10 requests for key information. Attorney General Torrez did not hold back. As the New York Post reported, Torrez said:
"Todd Blanche today with a stroke of a pen could grant us the access that he claimed. Instead they have decided to stonewall, to obstruct and to frankly conceal for whatever reason."
The DOJ's defense? It says it is withholding materials to comply with federal court orders that protect victim-identifying information. A DOJ statement said New Mexico "has provided no lawful basis to justify such sweeping disclosures." But a group of Epstein victims and their family members pushed back hard, calling the DOJ's argument "laughable when the DOJ has already revealed their names and personal information," according to AP News.
Epstein accuser Rachel Benavidez, who testified at a commission hearing the same day, put it more directly: "We don't need more paper files sitting as artifacts."
Epstein's estate listed Zorro Ranch in 2021 for $27.5 million. The price later dropped to $18 million. The property sold in 2023 to the family of Don Huffines, a Dallas real estate businessman, former Texas state senator, and Texas's acting state comptroller. Huffines renamed the property San Rafael Ranch, after the saint associated with physical and spiritual healing, and has said he intends to turn it into a Christian retreat.
Huffines posted a statement about the purchase: "What the enemy once meant for evil, God can redeem for good."
The commission's investigation continues. Its report made clear that more subpoena returns and document reviews remain ahead, and that identifying ranch staff "is crucial, as employees and contractors may have information or knowledge about activities at the ranch and the conditions and circumstances that facilitated Epstein's criminal wrongdoing."
For years, the powerful visited that ranch, law enforcement looked away, and the federal government sat on its files. The victims are still waiting for someone in authority to act like the crimes matter more than the guest list.
