New Mexico sues justice department for ‘stonewalling’ Epstein investigation

New Mexico filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice and acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Wednesday for “stonewalling” its criminal investigation into the activities of the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at a remote ranch in the state.Raúl Torrez, the New Mexico attorney general, had said he was mulling the possibility of legal action if the justice department did not share with him by 31 July information about the alleged historical abuse of girls and young women at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch about 30 miles south of Santa Fe.Wednesday’s filing, seen by the Guardian, delivers on that threat after the justice department appeared to ignore last Friday’s deadline.The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the district of Columbia, alleges that Blanche and his department had “stonewalled” the state investigation that Torrez reopened in February after the 10,000-acre Zorro property was mentioned thousands of times in recent releases of the so-called Epstein files.The government was compelled to release what it knew about Epstein’s activities and crimes by a transparency act signed by Donald Trump in November, but Democrats and critics have accused Blanche of covering up many of the files.Torrez said he wanted to establish what had taken place at Zorro, which, unlike other properties prominent in Epstein’s sex-trafficking conspiracy in Palm Beach, New York, and his private Caribbean island, saw no confirmed federal search take place.Epstein died in jail in New York in August 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.He bought the ranch in 1993 from the estate of the Democratic former New Mexico governor Bruce King, and numerous photographs of men and young girls there taken in the years thereafter featured in the latest Epstein files release.Additionally, a succession of survivors had previously given testimony about sexual and physical abuse they were subjected to at the ranch by Epstein and others.Torrez’s complaint asks for a declaration that Blanche and the justice department acted illegally in refusing to hand over any evidence it had about events at Zorro. It wants the court to direct the department to comply with the Epstein transparency law and so-called Touhy regulations governing how federal agencies handle requests for official documents during litigation.It also seeks costs and “such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper”.Torrez said in a 14 July letter to Blanche that he would “pursue all available legal remedies without further notice” if the 31 July deadline passed. The attorney general said he had made “repeated, documented, good-faith efforts to obtain the unredacted investigative records in the DoJ’s custody”.The US attorney’s office for the district of New Mexico, in a statement to the Guardian last week, said it had “substantively responded” to Torrez’s request on 30 June by emailing 31 documents.But Torrez said the papers were mostly old news clippings and heavily redacted pages of little use to state investigators.He said full transparency was needed to advance the criminal investigation initially opened by Hector Balderas, his predecessor as New Mexico attorney general, in February 2019, and later mothballed at the request of federal prosecutors at the southern district of New York, which led a previous Epstein investigation.Those same prosecutors told Torrez last month that they “will not cooperate” in the New Mexico investigation, he said in a social media post on 14 July.The Guardian has contacted the justice department for comment on Wednesday’s filing.More details soon …