New Mexico is suing the Department of Justice (DOJ) over unredacted Epstein files, accusing the federal agency of stonewalling the state’s own investigation into alleged crimes at deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch.
The legal action, filed Aug. 5, intensifies a politically charged fight over the DOJ’s Epstein files, which have been accumulating since investigations into Epstein began in the mid-2000s.
New Mexico reopened its investigation in February and is seeking access to files relating to who worked at and visited Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, and may have participated in or witnessed crimes.
The DOJ said it has handed over some of the files but is prevented by law from releasing others due to privacy protections.
“The Epstein Files Transparency Act does not require, and the protective orders in place in the Southern District of New York do not permit, disclosure of victim-identifying information carte blanche, and New Mexico has provided no lawful basis to justify such sweeping disclosures,” a DOJ spokesperson told The Epoch Times of its reasons for opposing the lawsuit.
The 2025 Epstein Files Transparency Act required the DOJ to release all unclassified records and investigative materials related to Epstein and his alleged sex trafficking network. The department was allowed to make redactions to safeguard the privacy of alleged victims or to shield ongoing investigations.
“Protecting victim privacy remains a top priority for the Department, and neither Touhy requests nor a desire to cooperate outweighs that privacy,“ the spokesperson said. ”DOJ remains available to assist New Mexico’s investigation consistent with the law and binding court orders.”
According to the complaint, the federal government has acknowledged that “Epstein and his criminal network subjected over 1,000 survivors to egregious and predatory conduct, including vulnerable young girls in New Mexico.”
New Mexico initially made informal requests to the DOJ for unredacted files. The federal agency had promised cooperation, including information sharing on alleged survivors and crimes, and told the state to formally file Touhy requests, used for accessing official information, testimony, or documents from a federal entity for use in a legal proceeding in which the U.S. government is not a party.
The complaint said the DOJ rejected the Touhy requests earlier this year. By failing to cooperate, DOJ officials are harming “victims and [undermining] the public interest” by holding up the state’s investigation of the conduct of Epstein and his co-conspirators at Zorro Ranch, it argued.
In 1993, Epstein bought Zorro Ranch and visited the state many times before he died in 2019. According to state prosecutors, the Epstein files contain more than 13,000 references to the ranch, along with 5,000 references to locations in the state where victims were allegedly trafficked, assaulted, and groomed.
New Mexico alleges the DOJ has failed to properly handle its Touhy requests and violated the Administrative Procedure Act governing administrative law procedures, citing the agency’s refusal to honor its 2019 agreement in which federal prosecutors promised to cooperate with the state after it put its Epstein probe on hold.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez has “marched through every bureaucratic hoop USDOJ has demanded, only to have years of promised federal cooperation turned into bureaucratic defiance,” the complaint said.
In a call with reporters, Torrez said of the state’s investigation, “We haven’t charged someone because we need to see those files before we charge someone.” He said the probe faces considerable obstacles, noting the decades since Epstein’s alleged crimes, the change of ownership of the ranch in 2023, and jurisdictional issues.
