New Mexico state investigators on Monday descended on the high desert ranch once owned by Jeffrey Epstein, beginning what may be the first thorough search of an overlooked but important part of the convicted sex offender’s empire.
The examination of the property is part of a renewed effort by state leaders to scrutinize the deceased financier’s crimes in New Mexico, which they say have never been fully investigated.
The state’s Department of Justice, which opened a criminal inquiry into the property last month, is carrying out the search along with a local sheriff’s office. A spokeswoman for New Mexico’s attorney general declined to comment further. It was not clear what parts of the ranch had been searched or how long the operation would last.
Victims of Mr. Epstein have said they were abused and trafficked at the property he named Zorro Ranch. Yet New Mexico officials and recently unsealed documents indicate that the federal authorities may have overlooked the 30,000-square-foot mansion and its sea of surrounding grassland after they took over a state-level inquiry into his actions in 2019.
In addition to the state attorney general’s criminal investigation, New Mexico lawmakers voted unanimously last month to impanel a bipartisan four-member “truth commission” in the State Legislature, equipped with subpoena power, to look into what might have happened at Zorro Ranch.
“I’m very glad to know the N.M.D.O.J. is doing what should have been done years ago,” said Andrea Romero, a New Mexico state representative from Santa Fe who is leading the commission. “Finally we are able to take a look inside a property that has created a yearslong mystery.”
The authorities have worried that the passage of time may complicate their efforts. The property has changed hands since Mr. Epstein’s death, and evidence may have been lost in the transfer. The ranch’s new owner, a Dallas real estate magnate named Don Huffines, has said he will comply with the state investigation.
Mr. Huffines, who last week won the Republican primary for Texas comptroller, said in a statement to The New York Times that the search was “a welcome step toward truth and justice.”
Mr. Huffines said his family had been “fully cooperating with the New Mexico D.O.J. to organize a thorough and legitimate investigation into any possible wrongdoing by the property’s former owner.”
Since purchasing the property, Mr. Huffines has rechristened it San Rafael Ranch, after the patron saint of healing, and said he would transform it into a Christian retreat.
New Mexico’s inquiries were spurred by unverified tips that surfaced in the U.S. Justice Department’s latest release of Epstein documents, including one anonymous claim that Mr. Epstein concealed the deaths of two abused girls by ordering that they be buried in the hills outside the ranch. It is unclear whether the F.B.I. ever looked into the tip.
The state’s Department of Justice asked the public to stay away from the area, which in recent weeks had become the site of sporadic gatherings and protests, while officers conducted the search.
In a column for The Albuquerque Journal last week, Raúl Torrez, the attorney general of New Mexico, said there would be “real obstacles” to unearthing physical evidence and prosecuting potential offenses but pledged to issue a public report at the investigation’s conclusion.
“The people of New Mexico, and those who were harmed, are entitled to a complete and transparent accounting of what we found and what we did not,” Mr. Torrez wrote.
Reis Thebault is a Phoenix-based reporter for The Times, covering the American Southwest.
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