New Mexico lawmakers will send subpoenas in Epstein investigation

New Mexico lawmakers said on Monday they are seeking documents from multiple public and private institutions as the first major step in their effort to tell the full story of what Jeffrey Epstein did in the state — and whether anyone else should be prosecuted for crimes there.

A committee known as the New Mexico Truth Commission expects to send subpoenas to 14 targets this week. This includes federal agencies that have investigated Epstein in the past –

the US Department of Justice and the FBI – as well as state and local law enforcement agencies that have investigated Epstein. Demands are also expected to be filed against Epstein’s former banks – Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chaseas well asand the Santa Fe Institute, a non-profit scientific research institute that Epstein supported.

Members said that if the committee finds evidence that someone has committed a crime that can be prosecuted, it will refer the case to an appropriate law enforcement agency in New Mexico or elsewhere.

The goal is to “create a thoroughly documented public record”, Republican state Rep Andrea Reeb said at a meeting at the New Mexico State Capitol. We will tell what happened, who was responsible, and do it with the evidence survivors deserve and the law demands.

Reeb is one of four members of the bipartisan commission.

The commission is already working with the New Mexico Justice Department.

which has reopened a criminal investigation that was closed in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors in New York. That agency is also seeking Epstein records from federal authorities.

Epstein, who bought a ranch outside Santa Fe in 1993 and typically visited several times a year, was never charged with crimes in New Mexico, despite allegations of sex crimes dating back decades.

At least 10 women have alleged that Epstein groomed or abused them at his 10,000-acre ranch in the mid-1990s, an NBC News review of court testimony, lawsuits and other records found. Half were teenagers when they said Epstein harmed them. Until the beginning of this year, no law enforcement agency had searched the farm.

The lost opportunities in New Mexico are part of a pattern with Epstein that began with a state investigation in Florida, where he was accused of paying underage girls for sex. In 2008, he reached a plea deal with state and federal prosecutors, sparing him serious prison time and ending investigations into his activities in other states. He was required to register as a sex offender in Florida and New York, but not in New Mexico.

Federal investigators in New York took up the case in 2019 after the Miami Herald published a disclosure. About the plea bargain. The New York prosecution of Epstein left the New Mexico area largely uninvestigated. After Epstein’s death in prison, prosecutors went after his partner Ghislaine Maxwell; the charges were briefly mentioned at her trial in New Mexico. He is now in federal prison.

In January, the Justice Department released millions of documents related to Epstein, including new information about efforts in 2019 to shut down the state investigation and new allegations of crimes in the area, the most disturbing being an unfounded allegation that two bodies were buried on the property. The revelation set off a fire in New Mexico and ultimately led to the determination of what happened at the ranch.

Commission members said Monday that their work will focus on the experiences of survivors. They will look not only at sex trafficking and financial crime allegations but also potential “medical and scientific crimes”, said state Rep Mariana Anaya, a Democrat. He didn’t say anything else about it.

The commission, whose work is funded by money collected by the state in its settlement with Epstein’s banks, is also expected to recommend changes to state laws to close gaps that could prevent authorities from prosecuting Epstein or others.

The commission heard from Rachel Benavidez, a survivor who says she was abused by Epstein while working as a licensed massage therapist at the farm, and from the family of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most vocal victims, who died by suicide last year.

Benavidez said, “We know that Jeffrey Epstein could not have acted alone. The web of this evil network extends to academia, science, medicine, politics, finance and government.”