Statewide Truth Commission investigates Jeffrey Epstein's ties to New Mexico

Jeffrey Epstein’s famous island and his New York townhouse have been the subject of a lot of scrutiny as his crimes have become clear. But, he also owned a sprawling New Mexico ranch that was roughly the size of 11 Central Parks.

But it was never raided by federal authorities even as his other properties were. But now, there has been something of a reckoning in New Mexico about that lack of scrutiny of Epstein’s history there, according to our next guest.

Clara Bates has been covering it all for the Santa Fe New Mexican, and The Show spoke with her more about it.

Clara Bates

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Full conversation

CLARA BATES: There are two parallel investigations. The Truth Commission is through the Legislature. It’s a panel of two Democrats and two Republicans. There’s also the state attorney general, who reopened a criminal investigation and actually has gone out to the ranch to begin searching.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. And tell us what this panel is after, what kind of power do they have? Like, do they have subpoena power? Can they use state funds to really take some action here?

CLARA BATES: Yes, they have a $2 million budget for this year and they do have subpoena power. They can compel witness testimony, which of course all reporters wish we had. So it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of information they can gather.

They have just recently hired a legal team in the last few days, so they’re really just getting started now. They’re required to produce a report by the end of July and then a final one by the end of the year. So it’s a bit of a crunch, but I know they’ve been accepting tips and hearing from some victims already.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. And what about the attorney general’s investigation that’s also happening? What is the AG doing at this point?

CLARA BATES: Right. They announced they were reopening this criminal investigation that they briefly had open around the time of Epstein’s death. The Attorney General’s Office closed it on the urging of federal prosecutors, who said that they were sort of taking care of it.

Of course, now we know that that didn’t result in the seizure of evidence at the ranch. And so the state attorney general is kind of backtracking to try to fill in some of those gaps to the extent possible. Of course, it was almost seven years ago now that Epstein died.

But they are looking into potential criminal activity that happened there. They’re being pretty tight-lipped about it all. But we do know that in March they spent two days, I think it was, searching the property.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And tell us about that search. Your reporting on this was really interesting about the tactics they used. We know how they went about this and what maybe they were after.

CLARA BATES: Yeah, it might be important context to know that in the U.S. Department of Justice files released earlier this year, there was this unverified anonymous tip that alleged the bodies of two girls were buried in the hills outside of Zorro Ranch.

And so, of course, we don’t know if that’s true, but it’s been taken seriously by some of the authorities here. And part of the March search of the ranch included four cadaver dogs. And I learned through a records request that they searched outside the mansion and kind of at a pit, a few other places.

We don’t know from the records I got whether they found anything. The current ranch owner told me it’s his understanding they didn’t. But we know that they had those dogs. I think they also have said they used drones, that kind of thing, to finally initiate this search.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And tell us about the current owner of this ranch. Your reporting on this was really interesting about, you know, the identity had been hidden until you broke that story.

CLARA BATES: Yeah, it might be important context to know that it wasn’t publicly known who the owner is until I broke that story earlier this year. It’s Texas politician and businessman Don Huffines. He bought the ranch in 2023, but his identity had been hidden because state law allows for anonymous property ownership through LLCs here. So it wasn’t listed in state records or anything like that. It required a bit of digging.

But since we broke that news in February, he said that all along he has planned to convert the ranch into a Christian retreat, and that that is ongoing. I think he said he wanted to turn a place of darkness into a place of light.

So we’ve written that he hasn’t formally taken steps to do that yet — for instance, applying for permits with the county, things like that — but he has assured us that’s his plan. So we’ll definitely keep an eye on what that might look like going forward.

LAUREN GILGER: Is he cooperating with investigators?

CLARA BATES: Yes, all along he has said he’s been willing to cooperate with investigators and no one reached out to him before these two investigations emerged earlier this year. So actually the two-day search I mentioned at the ranch in March, the State Attorney General’s Office and law enforcement working with them didn’t need a warrant, a search warrant. They just got cooperation, you know, they got the agreement with the current owners of the ranch.

And so they have been very cooperative so far. And like I said, they’ve, they’ve reiterated that there isn’t anything there anymore, or at least that’s what the current owners have said, that law enforcement hasn’t yet found any evidence there.

LAUREN GILGER: Epstein was not a registered sex offender in the state of New Mexico, I understand. Do we know why not? Like, it sounds like he spent a good amount of time there, and he was in other states.

CLARA BATES: It’s my understanding that the victim included in Epstein’s plea agreement in Florida was 17 years old, and at the time, New Mexico didn’t consider that to qualify to be put on the sex offender registry. I think you had to be 16 or under as a victim at that point. The law has since changed, but at that point, those are the records I’ve seen: that the victim was 17, and so he didn’t need to be put on the registry.

But of course, that meant there was less oversight in those years after his Florida conviction because he didn’t have to follow the same requirements that he did in places like New York and Florida.

LAUREN GILGER: Let me ask you lastly, Clara, about questions that have been raised here about potential corruption among public officials in New Mexico. You’ve reported that Epstein may have exploited some land leases, asked for tax reductions, things like that.

CLARA BATES: Yes. He leased public land ostensibly for grazing, but it seems like from the records I’ve gotten and reading through the Justice Department files as well, it was ultimately for a tax break that he was interested in that. It’s also possible he was interested in the privacy of having access to thousands more acres of public land.

But he was no humble New Mexico rancher. He kind of had a few other ranchers bring dozens of cattle, and it was a rather small operation. His predecessor had, I think, 300 cattle.

So that’s something sort of interesting. There are a lot of connections between Epstein and some elites in the state. Unfortunately, many of them are no longer with us, and so it’s hard to know how much information either of these investigations will come up with.

But I mentioned he bought the ranch from a former governor. We’ve written about his many meetings with a different former governor, Bill Richardson. He was also close to this Nobel laureate in physics, Murray Gell-Mann, who worked in the Santa Fe Institute here.

So he had these ties to the state. He wasn’t kind of just parachuting in and leaving. And so potentially we’ll get more information about those connections and whether they resulted in anything meaningful and his being treated differently than others here. But as of now, we don’t know a whole lot.

LAUREN GILGER: We’ll leave it there. Clara Bates, reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican, joining us. Clara, thank you for your reporting here. I appreciate it.

CLARA BATES: Thanks for having me.