State investigators began searching a secluded ranch in New Mexico on Monday where financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein once entertained guests amid allegations that the property may have been used for sexual abuse and sex trafficking of young women.
The search is the latest fallout from the publication in January by the US Justice Department of millions of files related to the late financier, which mention the "Zorro ranch" thousands of times.
The office of state Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that the search was being done with the cooperation of the current ranch owners.
Torrez last month reopened an investigation of the ranch. New Mexico's initial case was closed in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors in New York, and state prosecutors say now that "revelations outlined in the previously sealed FBI files warrant further examination."
Epstein never faced charges in New Mexico, but the state attorney general's office in 2019 confirmed that it had interviewed possible victims who visited Epstein's ranch.
After Epstein's death, an unidentified woman using the name Jane Doe 15 said Epstein raped her at the ranch when she was 15. Another woman, Annie Farmer, said that Epstein's jailed accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell fondled her breasts at the ranch when she was a teenager.
Epstein purchased the sprawling Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, about 30 miles south of Santa Fe, in 1993 from former Democratic Gov. Bruce King and built a hilltop mansion with a private runway.
The property was sold by Epstein's estate in 2023 — with proceeds going toward creditors — to the family of Don Huffines, a candidate in Texas for state comptroller who won the Republican primary last week.
"The New Mexico Department of Justice appreciates the cooperation of the current property owners," the agency said in a statement. Prosecutors "will continue to keep the public appropriately informed, support the survivors, and follow the facts wherever they lead."
Additionally, New Mexico state legislators have established a new commission to look into past activities at the ranch.
New Mexico Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury said the state's justice department was leaving "no stone unturned" in the search. "Epstein survivors have waited for far too long for justice and New Mexico is leading the way in the pursuit of truth and accountability," she posted on X.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, but killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges that he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls.
(With inputs from AP and AFP)
