The Zorro Ranch Touhy Letter and the Records New Mexico Wants (10/14/26)
The document is a May 3, 2026 Touhy request from the New Mexico Department of Justice seeking access to unredacted and unreleased federal records connected to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Zorro Ranch. New Mexico said it reopened its investigation in February 2026 after DOJ released redacted Epstein materials that, for the first time, gave state investigators a clearer picture of what may have happened at the ranch. The state reminded DOJ that its original 2019 investigation had been closed at the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, with the New Mexico file turned over for use in federal prosecutions. Now, however, New Mexico is investigating potential state felonies including homicide, kidnapping, criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact and human trafficking. Investigators said the redactions in the federal files were preventing them from identifying witnesses, corroborating survivor accounts, reconstructing travel and timelines, and determining whether additional people could be charged under New Mexico law. The letter then laid out specific examples of why New Mexico says it needs the unredacted records. Those include FBI interviews describing victims being brought to Zorro Ranch repeatedly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a 2019 prosecution memorandum identifying at least four minors and two adults who reported sexual assaults by Epstein, Maxwell and others in New Mexico, and interview notes from a victim who alleged Epstein forcibly raped her at the ranch. Another FBI interview described Maxwell allegedly giving a victim a non-consensual massage before Epstein sexually assaulted her, while other records referenced a professional massage therapist who described sexualized massages at Zorro Ranch, a male complainant who alleged he had been raped there, a 15-year-old girl flown to New Mexico, and a 2019 tip claiming that videos of sexual abuse existed and that two foreign girls were buried on the property. New Mexico made clear that these were allegations requiring investigation, not established facts, but argued that the federal government’s redactions were blocking meaningful follow-up and potentially preventing the identification of additional offenders. to contact me: [email protected] source: gov.uscourts.dcd.295266.1.18.pdf