New Mexico’s Epstein commission announces 9 more subpoenas to federal prosecutors, state agencies

A New Mexico legislative subcommittee tasked with investigating the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s time in the state on Thursday announced it would issue nine more subpoenas to federal and state government agencies, less than a week after it publicly published its first batch of subpoenas.

The state House investigatory subcommittee, known as the Truth Commission, late last week posted the first six subpoenas it issued as part of its investigation into Epstein and the New Mexico property he formerly owned, Zorro Ranch, on its website, NMTruthCommission.com.

At a virtual public meeting Thursday, commission Chair Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) announced nine more, which will be served to the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern District of Florida, District of South Carolina, Eastern District of Michigan, Western District of Michigan and the Virgin Islands, as well as the New Mexico Department of Health, New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department, Public Regulation Commission and the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives.

“We will do all we can to see that justice is served,” Romero said during the meeting.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the New Mexico Department of Justice had sent letters to JPMorgan Chase, Google, PayPal and more, ordering them to preserve any Epstein-related records as part of the agency’s ongoing criminal investigation. Investigators with the state Department of Justice searched Zorro Ranch in March.

Since the Legislature formally approved the commission’s creation in February, its leaders have promised to lead a “survivor-centered” investigation.

To that end, a woman who identified herself as Annette Church spoke during Thursday’s commission and said she had survived abuse at Zorro Ranch at the hands of Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

“I appreciate that the commission wants to get the truth out…Lord knows they are painful truths for me,” she said before describing in graphic detail the ways in which Epstein and Maxwell allegedly abused her when she was 17 years old.

At a news conference following the meeting, Romero told reporters that she and her other commissioners — Rep. William “Bill” Hall (R-Aztec), Rep. Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) and Rep. Marianna Anaya (D-Albuquerque) — had not met Church before Thursday’s hearing. Commission officials also had not vetted her account, Romero said.

For too long, government officials and institutions have ignored survivors’ stories, she said.

“We’re all hearing it for the first time in this panel,” Romero said, adding that commissioners welcomed “any sort of survivor coming forward and wanting to speak to the truth commission process and share their testimony and story with us.”

The commission is scheduled to publish an investigative report at the end of July and another at the end of the year.