Author: Erica Stapleton and Andrew Hay
SANTA FE, New Mexico, April 27 (Reuters) – New Mexico authorities are trying to determine how many local women and girls were abused at the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s remote Zorro Ranch compound.
Some said they were flown to the ranch and abused by Epstein and his associates. So far, only one is from New Mexico, former Santa Fe massage therapist Rachel Benavidez.
New Mexico Rep. Marianna Anaya, a co-sponsor of the state’s truth commission investigating Epstein, told Reuters the group has been in contact with some New Mexico residents who say they were mistreated at the ranch.
“I can confirm that the alleged victim on the ground has contacted us,” Anaya told Reuters in a text message.
local women and girls
Anaya added that the truth commission is working with the New Mexico Department of Justice to help survivors who may have viable criminal cases bring charges against Epstein’s co-conspirators.
It is the first time the commission has acknowledged contact with locals who say they were mistreated at the ranch during the quarter-century Epstein owned the land.
In February, the state reopened its investigation into alleged child sex trafficking at the ranch, citing the release of millions of files on Epstein by the U.S. Department of Justice. They included an email from someone claiming to be a former ranch employee who accused Epstein of burying the bodies of two girls in a hill outside the ranch.
Epstein and his associates are accused of grooming local teenage girls at his residences in New York and Palm Beach, according to court testimony in the criminal trial.
In 2019, the year Epstein was arrested and found dead in his cell, about 45 people went to the center seeking information, treatment and other services related to alleged sexual abuse at the ranch, Maria Jose Rodriguez Cadiz, director of Santa Fe’s Solace Sexual Assault Services Center, the only such support center in the region, told Reuters in an interview.
She estimated that between a quarter and half of those contacts were women who said they were abused on the ranch, although she added that the center did not keep detailed records.
“Dozens of people in need of information or direct services related to Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes are coming forward,” Rodriguez Cadiz said.
She attributed the increase in contacts in 2019 to news of Epstein’s arrest and the increased visibility of the #MeToo movement targeting powerful sexual abusers.
She said none of the women who came to the center in 2019 complained to police at the time. The center is a joint venture with the Santa Fe Police Department’s Special Victims Unit.
Nationally, about 24% of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police in 2024, the most recent year for which complete data is available, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
(Reporting by Erica Stapleton and Andrew Hay in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson and Suzanne Goldenberg)
