New Mexico searches Epstein''s Zorro Ranch after FBI files reveal new leads

"Jeffrey Epstein bought Zorro Ranch in 1993 from Bruce King, a three-time Democratic governor of 🌶️New Mexico, for a reported $12 million. The property sits near Stanley, about 30 miles south of Santa Fe, in the high desert of central New Mexico. The freehold portion covers over 7,600 acres; an additional 1,200 acres were leased from the state Land Commission. Epstein controlled it through a shell company called Zorro Trust, later renamed Cypress, Inc.\n\nOver the following years he built a 28,636-square-foot hacienda-style mansion, completed in 1999, that Epstein himself told Vanity Fair made his seven-story Manhattan townhouse 'look like a shack.' He also added a private airstrip, an airplane hangar, a helipad, a firehouse, multiple guest houses, and a seven-bay heated garage. The mansion is described as the largest private residence in New Mexico. Staff included a rotating group of young women described in court filings as masseuses. Former ranch manager BGBrice Gordon told the FBI that Epstein regularly flew in guests on his private jet."

"The FBI obtained search warrants for Epstein's Manhattan townhouse, his Palm Beach estate, and his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands after his July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. 🌶️New Mexico had opened its own state investigation and confirmed it had interviewed possible victims who visited the ranch. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of 🗽New York sent an email to the New Mexico attorney general's office in September 2019 explicitly asking the state to cease any investigation into sex trafficking at the ranch and share what it had gathered with their office instead.\n\nNew Mexico complied. Three months later, on Aug. 10, 2019, Epstein died in his Manhattan jail cell. The New York case wound down with no defendant to prosecute. No one restored New Mexico's authority to resume. The ranch was never searched."

"The Justice Department released more than 200,000 pages of previously sealed Epstein investigation files in late January 2026 under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Several items in the release were specific to Zorro Ranch.\n\nAn anonymous 2019 email received by Albuquerque radio host EAEddy Aragon claimed that two foreign girls had been buried somewhere in the hills on the property on orders of Epstein and GMGhislaine Maxwell, and alleged they died during sexual violence. The tipster asked for one Bitcoin. Aragon forwarded the email to a local FBI agent at the time. A separate 2019 email from a retired 🌶️New Mexico State Police officer flagged a barn on the property as structurally suspicious, describing a sally port-style garage door arrangement and a chimney inconsistent with agricultural use. Whether the FBI acted on either tip before the files were sealed is not clear from the documents."

"🌶️New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez formally reopened the criminal investigation on Feb. 19, 2026, citing the newly released files. On the weekend before the March 10 search, he published an op-ed in the Santa Fe New Mexican addressed to survivors: 'Your voices and your stories matter. What you choose to share and entrust with law enforcement in New Mexico will directly aid in this investigation, and we want to hear directly from you over the weeks and months ahead.'\n\nThe New Mexico state legislature separately voted unanimously to create a bipartisan truth commission to investigate the ranch, authorizing $2.5 million for the effort. The commission has subpoena power, which a criminal investigation alone does not. It can compel testimony from witnesses who might otherwise invoke the Fifth Amendment and hold public hearings producing a written record. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat, said after the vote that 'the crimes that were reported to federal and state authorities were never fully investigated.'"

"Multiple women have testified in other legal proceedings about abuse at the ranch. 🏛️Virginia Giuffre said she was ordered to have sex with Epstein and others on his 🌶️New Mexico property. Juliette Bryant, a South African woman, said she was abused at Zorro Ranch in 2004. AFAnnie Farmer testified she was sexually abused there as a teenager. Several women who testified in GMGhislaine Maxwell's 2021 federal trafficking trial described being brought to the property. Maxwell was convicted on five of six counts.\n\nThe ranch's guest logs are an open question. Epstein kept meticulous visitor records at his other properties. His so-called Little Black Book of contacts, eventually leaked in full, became central evidence in the broader case. Whether equivalent records exist for Zorro Ranch, whether the estate preserved them, and whether the current owners have access to them are questions investigators have not yet publicly answered."

"Epstein's estate sold the ranch in 2023 through a newly registered LLC called San Rafael Ranch LLC to Dallas real estate developer and former 🤠Texas Republican state senator DHDon Huffines, for an undisclosed price. The property had been listed at $27.5 million in 2021 and the asking price was later reduced to $18 million. Estate attorney Daniel Weiner confirmed that proceeds would go toward administering the estate and paying creditors. Huffines won the Republican primary for Texas state comptroller on March 3, 2026, one week before investigators arrived at the ranch.\n\nThe Huffines family agreed to cooperate fully with the search. The 🌶️New Mexico Department of Justice said in a statement that it 'appreciates the cooperation of the current property owners.' Without that cooperation, investigators would need separate court orders to search individual structures across more than 7,600 acres."

"The Zorro Ranch search landed in the middle of ongoing press coverage of the broader Epstein file release, and the two stories were routinely conflated. The DOJ's January 2026 disclosure included, separately, an allegation in an undisclosed deposition naming then-President-elect Trump. That item had been covered heavily in early March. It was legally and factually unrelated to the 🌶️New Mexico criminal investigation.\n\nEpstein never faced criminal charges connected to New Mexico. The state investigation that was shut down in 2019 had not produced an indictment. What investigators walked onto on March 10 was a property where multiple women have testified abuse occurred, where two anonymous tips described possible buried remains, and where no law enforcement search had ever been conducted while Epstein was alive."