Panel will examine New Mexico ties to convicted sex offender and recommend policy changes aimed at preventing future abuse and institutional failures

Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

The four members of New Mexico’s Jeffrey Epstein “truth commission” held their first meeting Tuesday morning. In the coming months, members said, the commission will publish a public-facing website, a live tip-line and an investigative report.

The state House of Representatives unanimously voted to form the House investigatory subcommittee on Monday. Commission Chair Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) said she wants to assemble a full picture of local and state law enforcement’s actions or inactions during Epstein’s time in New Mexico, where he was not required to register as a sex offender even though he pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting a minor for sex. She said the commission has already heard from survivors who were abused at Epstein’s Zorro ranch near Stanley in Santa Fe County, which sold in 2023.

Epstein purchased the sprawling property from former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King in 1993.

“This truth commission will finally fill in the gaps for what we need to know as the public…so we can learn from them and prevent these atrocities from taking place ever again in this state,” Romero said in a Tuesday news conference ahead of her committee’s first meeting.

The commission will operate with a $2 million budget. Romero said efforts are underway to hire investigators, legal experts and support staff. She and other members said they plan to coordinate their efforts with the New Mexico Department of Justice. The commission will meet publicly on an as-needed basis and post documents to a public website when all four commissioners agree to post them, Romero said.

The commissioners themselves bring relevant experience to such an investigation. Romero is an attorney; Rep. William “Bill” Hall (R-Aztec) is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent; Rep. Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) is an attorney who has prosecuted crimes against children; Rep. Marianna Anaya (D-Albuquerque) is a former deputy director for the progressive organization ProgressNow New Mexico and an advocate for abuse survivors.

The commission’s makeup of two Republicans and two Democrats is no accident. As Epstein’s sex trafficking scandal has become increasingly polarized nationally, commissioners said, they hope to cut through the noise.

“Keep the politics out of it,” Romero said. “Everyone wants to pull us into a direction about politics, but this is really, truly about getting the truth on the record and we take that very seriously.”

At the heart of their investigation is the question of who knew what and when they knew it. Commissioners said they will scrutinize the role local law enforcement played during Epstein and Maxwell’s time in the state.

Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas in a Tuesday email to Source NM said that his office investigated Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s actions at Zorro ranch before federal officials asked him to shelve the query.

“Our office investigated activity that occurred in New Mexico that was still viable for prosecution, including contact with multiple victims,” he wrote. “During that time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York asked that we pause any further state investigation or prosecution of activity related to Epstein, as they communicated to us that they were leading an active multi-jurisdictional prosecution. We provided all of our reports and interviews to them to ensure that they had all investigative leads and to pause from further parallel investigation. We did not close [the] matter, and continued to offer our resources to the DOJ and forwarded evidence to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. Our office requested that the U.S. DOJ use any asset forfeiture tools at their disposal to seize the ranch and that any proceeds from activity there be used to provide compensation to victims.”

Romero’s work begins as the U.S. Department of Justice uploads troves of documents to its public “Epstein Library.” To some leaders, this local work is something the federal government should have done long ago.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), who serves on the federal committee that has released documents from the 2019 federal sex trafficking case against Epstein, said state leaders are stepping up in an area where the federal government has overwhelmingly failed to act. 

“New Mexico is taking action where the federal government has thus far failed to follow up,” she said during a Tuesday news conference preceding the new commission’s first meeting. “It is a structured process through which survivors can come forward, witnesses can come forward, we can uncover a full picture of what happened and why the justice system has failed survivors in our state…This is what the U.S. DOJ should be doing in every single case at the federal level.”

Joshua Bowling is a senior reporter for Source New Mexico. He's reported in New Mexico, where he broke stories of lavish spending at Western New Mexico University and more, since 2022. Source New Mexico reporter Danielle Prokop contributed to this story.