How DOJ dropped the ball with a 'radioactive' Epstein 'crime scene'

Elisa Standridge, of Oklahoma City, at the entrance to Zorro Ranch, a property formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein, near Stanley, New Mexico, U.S. March 8, 2026. REUTERS/Rebecca Noble

In February, the New Mexico House of Representatives launched a "Truth Commission" that is being chaired by two Democratic state lawmakers, Andrea Romero and Marianna Anaya, and is investigating a ranch the late Jeffrey Epstein owned outside of Santa Fe. The goals of the commission, according to an announcement, include "gathering testimony" and "documenting abuses" as well as "identifying causes and consequences" and "making recommendations."

The announcement noted, "For 26 years, Jeffrey Epstein was a property owner in New Mexico," adding that the Truth Commission "will investigate the role New Mexico played in failing to identify the sexual abuse and trafficking" that Epstein was found guilty of.

Epstein was arrested in 2019 and was found dead in his cell in a federal detention center in New York City on August 10 of that year.

In an article published on March 23, The New Republic's Virginia Heffernan stresses that Epstein's Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County should have been thoroughly investigated as a "crime scene" seven years ago — but wasn't even "dusted for fingerprints."

"A four-person panel is now holding public hearings and conducting private interviews about crimes and cover-ups, using subpoena power and a $2 million budget," Heffernan explains. "A request for proposals from the House of Representatives to law firms that may want a piece of this action went out on March 13. The physical investigation of Epstein's Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County started March 9, and it turned sinister in short order. New Mexico Public Lands Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard proposed that cadaver dogs pore over the state land around Zorro to search for the bodies of girls alleged to be buried there."

"New evidence," according to Heffernan, shows that New Mexico, "was the site of some of Epstein's gravest misdeeds."

"Back in 2019," Heffernan laments, "when Epstein was arrested…. the state geared up for a probe into his activities in the region….. But before the New Mexico investigation could even take its first step, the feds stopped it in its tracks. The then-New Mexico attorney general said, in 2019, that federal prosecutors in New York told him they were running a complex, multi-jurisdictional investigation, and New Mexico should just back off. And thus, seven years have passed without Epstein's ranch being so much as dusted for fingerprints…. How could criminals manage to get officials to let their radioactive crime scene devolve into tumbleweeds? Through the usual trick of the Trump-Epstein class: Butter everyone up."

Heffernan adds, "In this case, Epstein sucked up to the most powerful men in the state with his trademark mix of money and 'massages.'"

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