The U.S. Department of Justice failed to meet a deadline set by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez to provide unredacted documents related to abuse at a ranch previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) appeared to ignore a Friday deadline set by Raúl Torrez, the attorney general of New Mexico, to share information about the abuse of girls at a remote ranch formerly owned by the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Torrez’s office asked the DoJ in February for unredacted files after he reopened a dormant criminal investigation into activities at Zorro ranch, a remote 10,000-acre property in desert scrub outside New Mexico. It set a 31 July deadline for the department to share relevant records. As it approached on Friday, the justice department did not respond to a request for comment. The Guardian reported in February that recent releases of the so-called Epstein files included thousands of mentions of the ranch, and numerous photographs of men and young girls there. A succession of survivors had previously given testimony about abuse they were subjected to. However, unlike other properties prominent in Epstein’s sex-trafficking conspiracy in Palm Beach, New York, and his private Caribbean island, no federal search of the ranch was ever confirmed to have taken place. Torrez set a deadline of Friday for federal prosecutors from the justice department, and the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York (SDNY), which led the original Epstein investigation, to allow access to whatever documents they had. Despite promises of cooperation from Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Jay Clayton, former US attorney for the SDNY, now director designate of national intelligence, Torrez said only 31 pages were ever handed over. They were mostly old news clippings and heavily redacted pages of little use to state investigators, he said. Torrez said in a 14 July letter to Blanche he would “pursue all available legal remedies without further notice” if the 31 July deadline passed, having made “repeated, documented, good-faith efforts to obtain the unredacted investigative records in the USDOJ’s custody”. The same week, in an interviewwith Albuquerque ABC News affiliate KOAT, Torrez said: “I’m not taking anything off the table. I’m not ruling out a lawsuit.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/01/doj-new-mexico-epstein-documents?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

"The US Department of Justice (#DoJ) appeared to ignore a Friday deadline set by Raúl Torrez, the attorney general of New Mexico, to share information about the abuse of girls at a remote ranch formerly owned by the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey #Epstein." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/01/doj-new-mexico-epstein-documents #EpsteinFiles #NewMexico

It's not going away. Torrez’s office asked the DoJ in February for unredacted files after he reopened a dormant criminal investigation into activities at Zorro ranch, a remote 10,000-acre property in desert scrub outside New Mexico. It set a 31 July deadline for the department to share relevant records. As it approached on Friday, the justice department did not respond to a request for comment. DoJ appears to ignore New Mexico deadline for key Epstein ranch files https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/01/doj-new-mexico-epstein-documents