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Newly released documents related to Jeffrey Epstein have shed further light on his sprawling ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, where multiple women say they were sexually abused as teenagers and where federal authorities appear never to have conducted a full search, media reports said on Sunday.

Epstein’s Zorro ranch covered nearly 10,000 acres, about 6,200 square miles, and included a 26,700-square-foot mansion, a private runway, and extensive agricultural land dotted with cattle and desert vegetation, according to The Guardian.

Survivors have testified that Epstein abused teenage girls and young women at the isolated property for years, describing repeated assaults that occurred far from public scrutiny.

Authorities searched several of Epstein’s other properties, including his New York townhouse and Caribbean island, but state and local officials said they were unaware of any federal search of the New Mexico ranch.

Hector Balderas, New Mexico’s attorney general at the time of Epstein’s arrest in 2019, said his office began investigating alleged crimes connected to the ranch but was later asked by US attorneys in New York to halt further state action.

“They communicated to us that they were already leading an active multi-jurisdictional prosecution,” Balderas said.

Failure to conduct search at ranch after arrest

Emails released by the US Department of Justice last week suggest that the ranch was not searched even after Epstein’s arrest.

In a December 2019 email, a federal prosecutor told a lawyer representing Epstein’s estate that authorities had “not searched the New Mexico property.”

The FBI declined to comment when asked whether the ranch had ever been searched.

The Guardian reported that multiple accusers described abuse at the ranch, including Jane, the first witness to testify at Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial.

Jane said Epstein began abusing her when she was 14 and that she traveled with him and Maxwell to New York and New Mexico.

“I just remember someone coming into my room and saying, ‘Jeffrey wants to see you,’” she testified, adding that her “heart sank” each time.

Another accuser, Annie Farmer, testified that Maxwell gave her a nude massage at the ranch when she was 16, followed by an encounter with Epstein the next morning.

“He pressed his body into me,” Farmer said, adding that she escaped by saying she needed the restroom.

Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, also said she was abused at the ranch and alleged she was trafficked there to powerful men, including former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.

A spokesperson for Richardson, who died in 2023, previously denied the allegations, calling them “completely false.”

Retreat until arrest

Undated photographs found in the newly released files show Epstein’s ranch, including the mansion, stables, and livestock, as well as young women riding horses and practicing archery, their faces redacted.

Several men also appear in the images, including Jean-Luc Brunel, Noam Chomsky, and Woody Allen.

None of them has been accused of criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein.

Epstein purchased the ranch in 1993 through an entity known as the Zorro Trust, which later became Cypress Inc., and leased about 1,200 acres, roughly 745 square miles, of state land for agricultural use.

After Epstein’s 2008 plea deal in Florida, the ranch served as a retreat until his arrest in July 2019, when New Mexico officials began reviewing leases tied to the property.

In September 2019, the state canceled Epstein’s grazing leases, citing misrepresentation and obstructed inspections.

“This land was no doubt used to protect the privacy of Epstein and his co-conspirators,” said Stephanie Garcia Richard, New Mexico’s land commissioner at the time.

The remaining property was sold in 2023 to San Rafael Ranch LLC.

That same year, Deutsche Bank pledged $4.95 million to fund efforts to prevent and prosecute human trafficking in New Mexico following its $75 million settlement with Epstein accusers.

State lawmakers are now pushing for a bipartisan truth commission to investigate what occurred at the ranch.

“There’s no complete record of what occurred,” Democratic state representative Andrea Romero said.

Records released so far suggest that, despite decades of allegations, the full story of Epstein’s activities at Zorro ranch remains unresolved.

Epstein files

The US Justice Department recently released more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.

The materials include photos, grand jury transcripts, and investigative records, though many pages remain heavily redacted. Epstein survivors and victims’ relatives say the release falls short of what the law requires and omits much vital information.

Epstein was found dead by suicide in a New York City jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.