New Mexico probing allegations bodies are buried near Epstein ranch

New Mexico's Department of Justice said on Wednesday the state was investigating an allegation, which emerged from documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice, that the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls buried outside his remote New Mexico ranch.

New Mexico Department of Justice spokesperson Lauren Rodriguez said it had requested from the U.S. Justice Department an unredacted copy of an email in 2019 containing the allegation.

The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined comment.

"We are actively investigating this allegation and are conducting a broader review in light of the latest release from the U.S. Department of Justice," Rodriguez said in an emailed response to queries about the case.

A day earlier, New Mexico's legislature launched the first comprehensive investigation into accusations that Epstein sexually abused girls and women at the Zorro Ranch 30 miles (48 km) south of Santa Fe for more than two decades. Pressure from Democratic lawmakers to uncover Epstein's crimes has become a major political challenge for President Donald Trump.

The redacted 2019 email, contained in the latest release of Epstein-related documents by the U.S. Justice Department, had been sent a few months after Epstein's death to Eddy Aragon, a New Mexico radio show host who had discussed the Zorro Ranch on his program.

The sender, claiming to be a former Zorro Ranch employee, requested payment of one bitcoin in return for videos that the email said had been taken from Epstein's house and showed the financier having sex with minors.

Aragon said in a phone interview that he believed the email to be legitimate and immediately forwarded it to the FBI. He said he did not receive any payment from or have any further contact with the sender, although he recently tried to respond to it for the first time but the address was no longer functioning.

The redacted email to Aragon said two foreign girls had been buried on Epstein's orders "somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro" and that the two had died "by strangulation during rough, fetish sex."

A 2021 FBI report, also contained in the latest Epstein file release, said Aragon visited an FBI office to report the email, which offered seven videos of sexual abuse and the location of two foreign girls buried on Zorro Ranch in return for one bitcoin.

A Reuters search of other documents among the Department of Justice's disclosures did not find any other references to the allegations in the redacted email or what investigators made of its claims.

The Justice Department warned last year that some of the files it disclosed from its investigation of Epstein "contain untrue and sensationalist claims," and that they include anonymous accusations that investigators did not corroborate, or in some cases determined to be false.

In an interview on Wednesday, New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard said her office had found the redacted email during a recent search of the latest Epstein file release.

Garcia Richard, in a February 10 letter to the U.S. Justice Department and a statement, called on federal and state justice officials to fully investigate allegations of criminality on Epstein's ranch and state lands adjacent to it.

Epstein leased around 1,243 acres (503 hectares) of state lands around the ranch in 1993. Garcia canceled the leases in September 2019 after her office determined Epstein did not use the land for ranching or agriculture but as a privacy buffer around his ranch.

Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.

-Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Additional reporting by Brad Heath in Washington; Editing by Donna Bryson and Edmund Klamann/Reuters