The chair of a New Mexico House investigatory subcommittee created to probe the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s activities in the state acknowledged Wednesday its first report does not contain major revelations or final findings.
What the interim report does accomplish, state Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) said, is memorializing for the first time what is known about Epstein’s time in New Mexico and his activities at Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County.
The report assembles a timeline for Epstein’s acquisition of the ranch, time spent there, visitors, use of firearms and alleged sexual crimes and human trafficking that took place through a variety of public documents, court records and other materials.
“In the seven years since Jeffrey Epstein died, in the two decades since his crimes first drew attention of law enforcement, no government, federal, state, or local, has ever compiled an account of what he did in New Mexico,” Romero said. “There are some court records that tell pieces of the story in other states’ cases for other states’ victims, but there has never been an official narrative for New Mexico. This report is the first.”
The nearly 120-page interim report prepared by the legal firm contracted by the commission also provides an accounting of the work the commission has done so far to document that narrative.
The New Mexico House of Representatives created the four-person bipartisan investigative subcommittee in its 2026 session. Its final report is due at the end of the year.
The commission’s work so far has included issuing 20 subpoenas to state agencies and local law enforcement, as well as private institutions such as the Santa Fe Institute, federal agencies and financial institutions J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. and Deutsche Bank.
Of those subpoenas, 11 have been met with full compliance, two were met with partial compliance and seven, Romero said, have been ignored, including by the Federal Aviation Administration and by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The latter agency has been a high-profile foil in New Mexico’s quest to investigate Epstein.
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has said he agreed to stop interviewing witnesses in New Mexico’s former investigation of Epstein after coming to an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York that federal prosecutors would refer state-related matters to the New Mexico attorney general’s office at the end of their case.
In a July 20 letter to current New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, Balderas said SDNY failed to honor the agreement.
As such, Torrez announced Wednesday his New Mexico Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice over what it says has been the federal agency’s withholding of documents.
The Truth Commission also subpoenaed Torrez’s office. In a news conference Wednesday morning regarding the NMDOJ lawsuit and ahead of the commission’s meeting, Torrez said that NMDOJ “complied with that subpoena and provided the information that they’ve asked for, and so I would imagine that we would do so again in the future.”
The commission’s report, however, characterizes NMDOJ’s response as “partial compliance.” Moreover, it says the Truth Commission and NMDOJ are currently involved in negotiations over information-sharing but have thus far “been unable to reach an agreement.”
Torrez noted Wednesday morning that NMDOJ’s criminal investigation into Epstein’s activities, which he announced in February shortly after the Legislature approved the Truth Commission, differs fundamentally from the Truth Commission’s work.
“Our investigation is very much focused on whether or not there is still a viable criminal case to evaluate and prepare,” he said. “Their investigation is much broader into institutional failures, information sharing: who knew what, when, how they acted on it, how they responded to it.”
Thus, he noted, “we have very different objectives, and what that means is we go about our work in…fundamentally different ways, and so part of what that means is that the work that they do is by its nature much more transparent and open to the public.”
All told, Romero said, the commission has thus far received more than 100,000 records in response to the subpoenas issued thus far. The commission voted Wednesday to issue four more: to the state Workforce Solutions, Public Safety and Taxation and Revenue departments, as well as Ten Thousand Waves spa.
The latter is mentioned in the interim report and has been reported previously as a place from which Epstein recruited massage therapists. The spa in April issued a statement on social media that said it had “never provided therapists for off-premises ‘house calls’, no therapist under the age of 18 has ever worked at the spa, and all therapists work on a contract basis.” It also noted its support for the work of the Truth Commission.
At its meeting on Wednesday, Romero also noted that the Truth Commission is centered on survivors “with a commitment to never asking a survivor to tell their story twice.”
Epstein survivor Rachel Benavidez, who has testified to the commission before, did so on Wednesday as well, in part calling for unreleased evidence to be made available.
“I use this survivor platform to stand on the right side of every survivor’s journey toward truth and justice,” she said. “I am holding onto faith that real accountability will be achieved.”
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