The US Department of Justice (DoJ) appeared to ignore a July 31 deadline set by Raúl Torrez, the attorney general of New Mexico, to share unredacted documents related to the abuse of girls at the remote Zorro ranch formerly owned by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Torrez’s office requested the files in February after reopening a dormant criminal investigation into activities at the 10,000-acre Zorro ranch located in desert scrub outside New Mexico. Despite promises of cooperation from Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Jay Clayton, former US attorney for the Southern District of New York and now director designate of national intelligence, Torrez said only 31 pages were ever handed over.

In a July 14 letter to Blanche, Torrez warned he would "pursue all available legal remedies without further notice" if the July 31 deadline passed, citing "repeated, documented, good-faith efforts to obtain the unredacted investigative records in the USDOJ’s custody."

The fight for these documents has been ongoing since Torrez reopened the inquiry first launched by his predecessor Hector Balderas in February 2019. Epstein had purchased the ranch in 1993 from the estate of former New Mexico governor Bruce King.

Meanwhile, the US attorney’s office for the district of New Mexico stated it had "substantively responded" to Torrez’s request on June 30 by emailing the 31 documents. Torrez criticized the southern district of New York for failing to honor their agreement, saying, "to have them fail to honor their agreement and then not give us access to this file is extremely unusual, and it’s complicating our ability to advance this criminal investigation."

The Guardian reported in February that recent releases of the so-called Epstein files contained thousands of mentions of the ranch and numerous photographs of men and young girls there. As the July 31 deadline approached, the DoJ did not respond to requests for comment.

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