Walt Rubel Commentary: Did connections shield Epstein in NM?

Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy man seeking privacy in the 1990s when he purchased a sprawling ranch near the Sandia Mountains outside of Santa Fe that had once been owned by former governor and attorney general Bruce King.

Now, three decades later, a state legislator is proposing that a “truth commission” be formed to get to the bottom of what took place at the Zorro Ranch.

“The first point of the commission is to tell the truth about what went on so that we know what we can do to remedy these situations,” said Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe.

In 2008, Epstein received a sweetheart deal after agreeing to plead guilty to two prostitution-related charges in Florida. He was arrested again in 2019 on federal charges in New York, and was found dead in his jail cell while awaiting trial.

In the years since then, Epstein’s crimes have taken on mythical proportions, especially on far-right websites where he came to symbolize what they believe is a global cabal of hedonistic billionaires who sexually abuse young children in the most sadistic and horrific ways imaginable.

It’s fair to say that Republicans were more concerned about Epstein’s crimes than Democrats until the election of Donald Trump. Now, Democrats see political opportunity in exposing Trump’s friendship with Epstein and some of the creepy manifestations that resulted from it.

But beyond the politics, there is a real desire for some small measure of justice for the victims and a better understanding of how this was allowed to happen without consequences.

When Epstein was charged in New York in 2019, then-New Mexico Attorney General Hector Baldera said the fact that he had not faced charges here was, “a huge black eye for our state.”

“New Mexico continues to lag behind the rest of the country in strengthening outdated and weak laws that fail to protect our children from abuse,” Balderas said at the time.

Balderas said his office had interviewed women who had been victimized at the ranch, and had been in contact with federal prosecutors in New York. But charges were never filed in New Mexico.

In 2015, one of Epstein’s victims said in a court filing that the New Mexico ranch was one of the locations where she had been abused.

One of the aspects that makes the Epstein case so intriguing is his connection to some of the most powerful men in the country and the world at that time. Trump and Bill Clinton were both friends. So was New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Court documents filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, allege that when she was 16 years old she was sent to New Mexico to give Richardson a “massage.”

Is that why charges were never filed here?

Epstein was well connected. He made political donations to both King, a Republican, and Richardson, a Democrat. The one thing both men had in common was power.

Richardson is not here to defend himself. And, we will probably never know for sure what role, if any, Epstein’s connections played in helping him avoid prosecution in New Mexico.

But it is worthy of investigation, not to shame the dead, but rather to better understand how this happened and how we can prevent it from happening again.


Walter Rubel can be reached at [email protected]

Listen to the audio version