AILSA CHANG, HOST:
New Mexico has two investigations going on into the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein that may have been committed at his sprawling property there. It's called Zorro Ranch. Today, the state attorney general sued the Justice Department, saying it has blocked the state's attempt to get information that it needs. That came on the same day that a committee in the state legislature released a report on what it is looking into. Daniel Montano joins us now from member station KUNM in Albuquerque. Hi, Daniel.
DANIEL MONTANO, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: Hello. OK, so what exactly is the attorney general there trying to access through this lawsuit?
MONTANO: Yeah. So the state's attorney general, Raul Torrez, says that he has been trying to get access to the unredacted versions of the millions of pages released by the U.S. DOJ through the Epstein Files Transparency Act because he says that the redacted versions obscure the names of potential victims, coconspirators, witnesses. The U.S. Justice Department did respond to the lawsuit today, saying that it's blocked under law from releasing the names of victims. So a judge could end up deciding that. But this has been a big issue with people here. And survivors of Epstein's abuse and their friends and family have been calling for the state to look into what happened at the ranch.
CHANG: Right. Can you just tell us a little bit about Zorro Ranch?
MONTANO: Yeah. It's a huge property near Santa Fe, about 9,000 acres of land that Epstein owned, a small amount that he rented that included a helipad and a runway, a hangar, a gun range, a 30,000-square-foot mansion. Now, today, as you mentioned, a special committee of the state legislature, called the Survivors' Truth Commission, released their first report. It didn't have any big new revelations. But it did have a very detailed timeline and things to look into further.
It noted that he bought the property in 1993 from the family of the then New Mexico Governor Bruce King. Epstein owned it through the time he was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008 in Florida. And it was still in his estate when he died in jail.
CHANG: How much did that committee report say about the abuses at that ranch?
MONTANO: Well, this is an interim report, remember. It's also the first one. They'll have a final report at the end of the year. So they're still looking into it. And they're finding witnesses, issuing subpoenas for record, et cetera. But the report did say that using the Epstein files, the committee has so far seen reports of at least five people, all unidentified at this point, who may be survivors of abuse there.
But the report says that there are, quote, "at least 30 other individuals" who were potentially abused by Epstein in New Mexico. But that's not confirmed. The committee noted one instance of abuse there going back to 1996 involving a massage. And, in fact, it said that Epstein may have found women through a luxury Santa Fe spa.
CHANG: Well, what's next in this process with these parallel investigations?
MONTANO: Well, the committee report has a lot of questions about what law enforcement or others in power in New Mexico might've known about the ranch. For example, it says Epstein had a firing range and guns on the property. And they're wondering if police ever checked whether that was legal for a convicted felon. They're also trying to talk to former employees at the ranch. And they say they want to know more about how abuse could've been going on there without law enforcement preventing it.
CHANG: That is Daniel Montano of KUNM. Thank you, Daniel.
MONTANO: Thank you.
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