New Mexico officials are accusing Donald Trump’s Department of Justice of obstructing access to documents connected to the federal government’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein as the state performs its own probe into the sex offender’s alleged crimes at his Zorro Ranch property.
The state’s Attorney General Raúl Torrez is demanding immediate access to files requested by his office several months ago and suggested the Justice Department s now withholding those records despite what he called “verbal assurances” from the federal government.
New Mexico’s Department of Justice is investigating Epstein’s alleged crimes at the Santa Fe County property that was once owned by the wealthy and well-connected sex offender.
Torrez’s office requested records from the Justice Department more than 130 days ago, he wrote in a Thursday letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. But “access to the requested records has not been granted” and “no substantive response has been provided,” he wrote. His office “views this length of time as an unreasonable delay under any rule of reason,” Torrez added.
The records in the Justice Department’s possession include “the names of survivors, witnesses, co-conspirators and other individuals whose identities are essential” to the state’s investigation into Zorro Ranch, according to Torrez.
State investigators reopened an investigation into the 26,700 square foot hilltop mansion in Santa Fe County after the Justice Department began releasing millions of documents stemming Epstein investigations.
Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025, was pictured at Zorro Ranch, and other survivors of his abuse, including Annie Farmer, have described the abuse they experienced under Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell at the property.
“Heavily redacted open-source records already establish that multiple survivors were brought to Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, on numerous occasions, where they were subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation,” Torrez wrote to Blanche.
“Survivors of serious criminal conduct at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico are being denied justice,” he wrote. “That harm is a direct consequence of the [Justice Department’s continued failure to comply with [New Mexico’s] outstanding records request.”
Those records are “essential to substantiating survivor testimony and constructing the evidentiary foundation any prosecution requires,” he said, and the Justice Department’s withholding of the documents is causing “real and escalating harm” to the state’s investigation.
Ongoing efforts to prevent the release of unredacted documents not only “erodes” the state’s investigation but also imperils the prospect of prosecutions if there are “legal hurdles” under statutes of limitations and due process, according to Torrez.
The state’s 2019 criminal investigation into Epstein’s activities in New Mexico closed within a year without any charges filed. Epstein died in jail that summer while awaiting trial on federal trafficking charges in New York. His death was ruled a suicide.
Earlier this year, state lawmakers created an investigatory subcommittee with subpoena power to collect testimony, records and other evidence. New Mexico residents “deserve to know the truth about what went on at the Zorro Ranch and who knew about it,” Democratic state Rep. Andrea Romero said in a statement about a vote establishing the committee.
“We have heard years of allegations and rumors about Epstein’s activities in New Mexico, but unfortunately, federal investigations have failed to put together an official record,” she said.
The committee is expected to operate through the rest of 2026 with a budget of $2 million, funded by a 2023 settlement between Torrez’s office and several financial services companies over failures to identify abuses at the property.
Epstein bought the ranch from former New Mexico Governor Bruce King. The property — which includes an airstrip, helipad and hilltop mansion where the billionaire sex offender is accused of abusing women and girls over a 26-year period — was put up for sale in July 2021, two years after Epstein’s death. It was valued at $27.5 million at that time.
The property was acquired in 2023 by Don Huffines, a businessman and self-declared “MAGA Trump Republican” who recently won the Republican nomination for Texas comptroller.
Huffines is behind an entity called San Rafael Ranch LLC, which The Santa Fe New Mexican first traced to Huffines through public records requests. The property was valued for tax purposes at $21.1 million for the 2023 fiscal year, and the LLC argued that Epstein’s “notoriety” and its higher sales price merited a lower valuation.
The Independent has requested comment from the Justice Department.
