New Mexico says DOJ missed deadline for Epstein ranch records

What This is

• New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez says the Department of Justice did not meet a July 31 deadline to provide records related to alleged abuse at Jeffrey Epstein's former Zorro Ranch, prompting the state to consider legal action.
• Torrez says the Justice Department has not provided the unredacted federal records his office requested and needs to pursue investigative leads.
• Torrez says the DOJ delivered only a small number of pages and that they were heavily redacted, limiting their use in the state probe.
• The DOJ says it cannot provide millions of unredacted documents because of federal law, court protective orders, and privacy protections for victims and witnesses.
• Torrez says delays and redactions make it harder to corroborate testimony and build cases as evidence grows stale and witnesses become harder to find.
• Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas says federal prosecutors in New York shut his office out of a 2019 Zorro Ranch inquiry and did not share records or allow follow-up interviews.
• A separate state legislative “Truth Commission” says some federal offices, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, have not responded to its subpoenas.

Why This Matters

• The outcome will shape whether New Mexico can pursue criminal cases tied to Zorro Ranch using names and leads that may be in federal files.
• It highlights the tension between public accountability and protecting victims and witnesses from being identified in sensitive records.
• The fight also shows how hard it is for states to get information from federal offices when records are sealed or covered by court orders.
• Ongoing delays raise the risk that survivors, witnesses, and evidence will be harder to locate or verify as time passes.