(The Center Square) – Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, where multiple alleged child sex crimes were committed, is now at the center of a state comptroller race in Texas.
Former Republican state representative, business owner and gubernatorial candidate Don Huffines is running for comptroller to manage the state’s finances.
The 8,000-acre property in Stanley, New Mexico, in southern Santa Fe County, was sold in 2023 to San Rafael Ranch, LLC, for an undisclosed amount, with the owners’ names kept confidential, KRQE News reported.
It wasn’t until a street name change and property taxes were contested that public records requests revealed the owner of San Rafael Ranch was Huffines. His wife, Mary Catherine, is listed as a trustee. His son, Colin Huffines, is listed as an LLC manager. A records request made public by the Santa Fe New Mexican, shows the estate was valued at $21.1 million in 2023 but after Huffines protests, the county tax assessor dropped the value to $13.4 million.
Epstein was reported dead in August 2019 in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, one month after the first Trump administration charged him with sexually exploiting dozens of underage girls. Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in the sex trafficking scheme.
Under the second Trump administration, more than three million files have been released related to Epstein allegations, with much of the documents redacted.
Epstein’s properties stretched from Paris to New Mexico, with combined real estate values totaling roughly $117 million, Forbes reported. From 2019 through 2025, Epstein’s estate had distributed more than $160 million to survivors; in 2024, the estate received a $112 million IRS tax refund; last March, it still had $131 million in assets, Forbes reported.
More than 4,200 records have been released by the Department of Justice about the Zorro Ranch. One details a Native American woman who was interviewed by the FBI and claimed her mother trafficked her and other children to the ranch, where Epstein held them in property bedrooms and forced them to perform sexual acts to high-prominent clients. Multiple documents describe gruesome sexual abuse of children at the mansion the Huffines purchased, referred to by victims as “the house on the hill.”
The property is also connected to a murder-for-hire scheme and other crimes committed by a Florida nonprofit leader sentenced to more than 34 years in prison. He was convicted of a $2.7 million check kiting and money laundering scheme, Paycheck Protection fraud and filing $300 million worth of fraudulent warranty deeds for properties nationwide, including Zorro Ranch.
Prior to the Huffines purchase, New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard canceled state cattle grazing licenses with the Epstein property in 2019. She also called for a state investigation into state land being used for criminal acts, including the burying of abused deceased children. Neither the state land nor Zorro Ranch had been searched as part of a criminal investigation, she said.
After the Epstein Files were released, she’s again calling for state and federal investigations, wanting to use radar and cadaver dogs to search for remains, Scripps News reported.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign political consultant Dave Carney criticized what he called the “sleaze ball secret land deal,” noting that New Mexico officials wanted “to search for buried bodies… What kind of person thinks that’s a good and decent investment?” He also asked, “Who would give Jeffery Epstein’s estate millions of dollars? No wonder it was done in secret!”
Huffines has characterized his comptroller campaign as bringing accountability to managing state resources and championing conservative, Christian values. When asked how purchasing property used by convicted sex traffickers reflected these values, his attorney, Allen Blakemore, said in a statement, “Four years after Mr. Epstein’s death, the Huffines family purchased property in New Mexico listed at public auction whose proceeds benefited his victims. Prior to the auction listing, they had never visited the property.”
An attorney for Epstein’s estate told KRQE News the proceeds of Zorro Ranch were used “for estate administration, including payment of creditors.”
