Zorro Ranch:
the property nobody searched

Acquisition. Epstein bought the ranch in 1993 from the family of former New Mexico Governor Bruce King. Property records show the transaction involved multiple parcels that he consolidated into a single estate.

Location and scale. The compound sits roughly 35 miles southeast of Santa Fe, near the small town of Stanley, on high plains where the nearest neighbours are miles away. Reported acreage varies between 7,500 and 10,000 depending on how the parcels are counted.

The state land detail — and why it matters legally. Beyond the deeded property, Epstein added a 1,200-acre buffer zone by leasing land from the State of New Mexico.

That lease is not a footnote. State-leased land falls under state jurisdiction, which is the legal hook that gave New Mexico's Attorney General standing to investigate conduct there — and gives the Land Commissioner an institutional interest in what happened on it.

What was built. A 26,700-square-foot mansion, a private airstrip, a hangar, a helipad, extensive underground areas, and numerous auxiliary buildings. The airstrip meant guests could arrive and depart without passing through any commercial airport.

The isolation was the point. Epstein successfully kept activities at the property hidden for years — even, by multiple accounts, from his neighbours. A private airstrip on 7,500 acres of high desert is a place where arrivals leave no public record.

Never charged in New Mexico. Despite two decades of allegations and multiple civil suits accusing him of assaulting girls at the property, Epstein was never charged with any crime in the State of New Mexico.

The plan, as reported. In 2019 the New York Times reported that Epstein had told scientists and other acquaintances he wanted to use Zorro Ranch for a breeding programme. The reported elements:

• He wanted to "seed the human race" with his own DNA
• He envisaged as many as 20 women being impregnated at the ranch at a time
• The scheme was said to be inspired by the Repository for Germinal Choice — the Californian sperm bank founded in 1980 that solicited donations from Nobel laureates
• Scientists who met with him said he appeared serious about it

Evidentiary status. This is the part of the Zorro Ranch story that circulates most widely and is grounded least in documents. There is no hard evidence that any such programme was ever implemented. The plan is documented principally through journalistic reporting and the recollections of people who knew him — not through contracts, medical records, or correspondence describing an operating scheme.

What is established is that he discussed it, with multiple scientists, over a period of years.

Why it belongs in the record anyway. The "baby ranch" is not a curiosity. It sits inside a documented pattern of Epstein's interest in genetics, population and heredity — the same interest that ran through his science funding, his transhumanism connections, and the research agendas he steered through MIT.

And it names a location. Of all the properties, the plan attached specifically to Zorro Ranch: the isolated one, with the private airstrip, the underground areas, and no neighbours.

Annie Farmer. Testified at Ghislaine Maxwell's federal trial about being brought to Zorro Ranch and forced into unwanted activities. That testimony was part of the evidentiary record that produced Maxwell's conviction on five counts. This is sworn trial testimony placing the ranch in the operation.

Virginia Giuffre. Provided photographs in a 2015 court document that she said were taken of herself at the ranch.

"Annette Church." A survivor testifying under that name gave evidence to the New Mexico Truth Commission in June 2026.

The civil record. Several civil suits have accused Epstein of sexually assaulting girls at the property. He was never criminally charged in relation to any of them.

What the state says the allegations amount to. Scripps News, summarising the accounts from survivors, their diary entries, and the released DOJ files, lists the alleged conduct at the property as including rape, sexual assault of minors, forced births, and eugenics.

The prosecutorial point. Republican State Representative Andrea Reeb — a former prosecutor, now on the Truth Commission — has been explicit that the state charges were available:

"You hear, 'Oh, well, we didn't have the charges or the statutes to charge what the feds could have charged,' but we had criminal sexual penetration of a minor for all different ages; one of them carries 18 years in prison. We may not have had trafficking of humans or sex trafficking charges, but we had enough that we could have definitely gotten some serious jail time on Mr. Epstein."

Reeb has said she would have indicted the case rather than pause it.

The documented fact. After Epstein's death in August 2019, federal authorities executed search warrants at several of his properties. Zorro Ranch was not among them.

The evidence for this is now in the files. An email from a federal prosecutor included in the released Epstein files establishes that, as of December 2019 — four months after Epstein's death — federal law enforcement had not searched Zorro Ranch. There is no public record of a search at any point thereafter.

Seven years passed. From that December 2019 email to the New Mexico state search in March 2026, the property was never examined by any law enforcement agency — during which time it was listed for sale in 2021, failed to sell, went to auction in August 2023, changed hands, was renamed, and began conversion to a new use.

What Rep. Romero identified as the central gap. Speaking to Newsweek before the state announced its reopened investigation, the Truth Commission's sponsor said one of the most striking features of the entire case was the absence of any official examination of the property.

Why the absence is itself the story. A federal sex trafficking case was built against Epstein in 2019 on conduct spanning multiple properties. One of those properties — the most isolated, with the private airstrip and the underground areas, where survivors had alleged abuse since the early 2000s — was never entered.

No explanation for that decision has been published.

This is the most consequential thread in the Zorro Ranch story, and it emerged from the 2026 files.

The investigation. Then-New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas began looking into Epstein and Zorro Ranch in 2019. He has said his office found "activity that occurred in New Mexico that was still viable for prosecution, including contact with multiple victims."

The call. By Balderas's account, months before Epstein's arrest he was well into building a state case and had just returned from interviewing a survivor when he received a call from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. A federal prosecutor told state investigators to stop interviewing witnesses.

The agreement. Later that month the two offices reached terms: New Mexico would stop and turn over what it had gathered, and SDNY would refer state-related matters back once its federal case concluded.

The corroboration, now public. Two documents in the released files support this account:

• A handwritten investigator's note recording that the New Mexico Department of Justice would stop interviews and refer matters to SDNY, and that SDNY would refer state-related matters back at the conclusion of its case.
• A September 2019 email from a then-assistant U.S. attorney stating that the New Mexico AG's office "agreed to cease any investigation into sex trafficking and share whatever they had gathered regarding sex trafficking activity with our office."

What happened next. Epstein died in August 2019. The federal case ended with him. New Mexico's investigation closed within a year, without charges.

The referral back never came.

Balderas's position now. In July 2026 he wrote to current Attorney General Raúl Torrez and to the Truth Commission, offering to assist and describing the federal non-compliance with the agreement.

The claim. A 2019 email released in the January 2026 disclosure alleges that Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls to be buried in the hills near the property.

How it surfaced. The email was discovered in the released files by the office of Stephanie Garcia Richard, New Mexico's Commissioner of Public Lands — the official responsible for the state land Epstein leased as his buffer zone.

Her account of finding it: "As soon as I saw that, my heart dropped. What if the allegations were true?"

Why her office and not another. The alleged burial site is described as being in hills near the property. Some of that surrounding land is state land under her jurisdiction — which is precisely why her office was reading the files for references to it.

Her assessment of the possibility, asked directly whether she had real concern bodies could be buried on or near the property:

"We do know there are missing individuals. Those girls… their bodies have not been recovered. So, you know, there is a potential there."

What it triggered. The State Land Commissioner urged both the state and federal justice departments to investigate. On February 19, 2026, Attorney General Raúl Torrez ordered the criminal investigation reopened. On March 9, 2026, investigators searched the property.

What the search found. Not publicly disclosed. The New Mexico Department of Justice has not stated what investigators were specifically searching for, whether any physical evidence was recovered, or whether the burial allegation has been substantiated or excluded.

The market history. The ranch sat largely unused after Epstein's death. It was publicly listed in 2021 and failed to sell at the asking prices reported at the time. It was ultimately sold at auction in August 2023 for an undisclosed sum, to an entity identified in property filings as San Rafael Ranch LLC.

Proceeds from the estate sale went toward creditors and were intended to help fund settlements with survivors.

The buyer, identified in 2026. The purchaser remained undisclosed for over two years. It was later reported — first by The Real Deal — that the buyer was the family of Don Huffines, a Texas businessman and former Republican state senator, at the time campaigning for Texas comptroller. A family spokesperson confirmed the purchase to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

What the new owners have said. Huffines, who describes himself as "a courageous MAGA Republican," never visited the property before purchasing it, according to the spokesperson. The property has been renamed Rancho San Rafael, with religious signage installed at the entrance, and the owners have discussed converting it into a Christian retreat centre.

The LLC point. Rep. Melanie Stansbury noted that the purchase was completed through a Limited Liability Company, which allowed it to be made anonymously. She also observed that Huffines's son works in the Trump administration.

Her own framing was careful: "Now, we don't know if these ties mean anything, but what we do know is that this property is a property in which multiple survivors have reported abuse."

The cooperation. Whatever questions attach to the purchase, the New Mexico Department of Justice confirmed the present owners cooperated with the March 2026 search and granted investigators access. No allegation of wrongdoing has been made against them.

The criticism. Some survivors and advocates have objected to the symbolic transformation of the site — arguing that a property whose past has never been adequately investigated should not be repurposed before it is understood.

Established February 2026 by a unanimous vote of the New Mexico House of Representatives — a bipartisan body, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Andrea Romero, with four lawmakers on the panel including Republican Rep. Andrea Reeb.

The mandate. To investigate the failures that led to the allegations of abuse at Zorro Ranch, hear survivor testimony, and recommend changes. Rep. Roberto "Bobby" Anaya described a central goal as creating "more pathways for justice for all survivors of sexual abuse and assault in our state."

The funding is itself notable. The commission is funded by a settlement between the New Mexico Attorney General and financial institutions, obtained during an investigation into those institutions' role "in failing to identify the sexual abuse and trafficking of underage girls at Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch."

Money recovered from banks that failed to flag the operation is paying for the investigation into why nobody stopped it.

Powers exercised. The commission issued 14 subpoenas at its inaugural meeting.

Reporting deadlines. An interim report by the end of July, and a final report by the end of the year, detailing investigative procedures, findings, conclusions and recommendations.

The parallel criminal track. Separately from the commission, the New Mexico Department of Justice reopened its criminal investigation on February 19, 2026. Its stated intention: to seek "immediate access" to the complete, unredacted federal case file, work with the commission, and collect and preserve any relevant evidence that remains available.

Bipartisan framing. Rep. Rod Montoya (R): "Zorro Ranch has been a very big secret here for a long time, something not addressed. So I'm glad we're getting around to it." Rep. John Block (R): "I want answers."

A small, strange, unresolved thread that emerged from CBS News's analysis of what is absent from the released files.

In August 2018, an employee emailed Epstein a file titled "ZMC_-_Gun_Inventory.pdf" — an inventory of approximately 30 firearms held at the New Mexico property, including their serial numbers.

The firearms were subsequently stolen.

The investigation problem. According to a New Mexico State Police report obtained by CBS News, the serial numbers were withheld from investigators during the theft investigation.

Serial numbers are the entire basis on which stolen firearms are traced. Withholding them from police investigating the theft renders the investigation close to futile.

And the document is not in the archive. CBS was unable to locate any document in the released files containing the firearm serial numbers.

What is unresolved: who withheld the serial numbers from the state police and why; whether the firearms were ever recovered; and whether the inventory document is among the material still withheld.

Thirty weapons left a property under investigation. Police were denied the means to trace them. The record of what they were is not public.