The New Mexico Truth Commission released their first interim report on Jeffery Epstein's actions in New Mexico. KRWG’s Noah Raess spoke with State Representative and chair of the commission Andrea Romero to learn more.
Noah Raess:
Can you go over the report and what was in that report?
Andrea Romero:
Yeah, the report really lays the foundation for what Jeffrey Epstein was doing in New Mexico in the 26 plus years that he was here. Really trying to understand, you know, a lay of the land for what was he doing here? What sort of observations can we already start making about his actions and activities in the state? And, and certainly around the areas of interest when we talk about, criminal sex abuse and trafficking, we do talk about some of the victims of his crimes in the report. Jane Doe's that we do name as Jane Doe's. And then a number of folks that were surrounding this operation, workers at the ranch, part of the ranch, operations at the Zorro ranch that he owned at the time. And some of the, you know, different ins and outs of that operation itself. And then start to look at some of the other areas of interest, such as firearms crimes that he may have committed that went overlooked by police at the time. And certainly a number of other interests, whether it's scientific and medical interests and other things that were happening at the ranch, including calls to the police that never went answered as well. So there's just a number of areas that we're just really starting to understand as a commission that we wanted the public to know where, as far as we've been able to get to source that information as we've filed all of our subpoenas and now can actually start digging through primary source documents that we've received through our process. So, this is really kind of the step zero before the step one of understanding what is it that we have to, at our, you know, disposal to, to really understand that it's public information out there to then build a case on all the people that we will be interviewing. In the case that we need to continue this this search for the truth.
Noah Raess:
And you kind of talked about some of the info and kind of diving more into that, I watched the commission meeting where this report was released. And, you know, I read through the report as well. This was mentioned at the meeting, but there's not a lot of new info that, you know, wasn't already out there. And, you know, some people have kind of criticized that and said, well, why are we doing this if there's no new info coming out? I guess what's your response to that?
Andrea Romero:
I think just being able to lay that foundation, have a public government report, we've never been able to put a coherent story together for us to build a case against these folks. When we saw the release of the Epstein Files, from the FBI and the DOJ, you know, it's just a big mess of documents with no coherent understanding of what was relevant, what wasn't. So it's taken a lot of for a long time for us to really try to unpack and understand what that what what the relevancy of a lot of these documents are because we have a failure for the federal Department of Justice to comply with, you know, any order to release the documents fully for us to be able to understand what's gone on. We also have not seen any of the original filings where there was no investigation in New Mexico at the time. So we're really trying to pick up the pieces here. So all of those different criticisms 100%, you know, we've been working on these, but the time that we release the report for 100 days, and so, you know, we want to know the truth too as quickly as possible. No question about that. So I understand the frustration of wanting to get down to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. But unfortunately, it's going to take more time for us to get through over 100,000 documents that have been provided to us as a commission now that our subpoenas, information has been coming in, we released no information regarding what was in those because we still need time to review. So this is as far as we could get to really build that foundation. We really are stressing this is an interim report. Certainly not at all what we expect to have at the end, which, you know what we've been saying, these files leading to trials, really building a case about all of the different, laws that we will need to change going into next session, inclusive of potential perpetrators that we can name and ask for prosecution. So, that or civil penalties, perhaps for a number of folks that we do expect to be named. So yeah, I'm with the public on the real struggle to get the information that we really, really do need, to move this case forward.
Noah Raess:
And recently, Republicans said that they were pretty surprised that there's no mention of Deb Haaland in the interim report. You know, she flew on a jet that Epstein helped charter. She says that she had no idea of his involvement. I was just kind of wondering, what's your response to these criticisms and concerns that have come up recently?
Andrea Romero:
I mean, if there was any surprise, I think the question is what was the surprise? You know, Republicans have been part of this process the entire time. Even as we were prepping and preparing to release the report, you know, we were all involved in every step of the way what was going to be provided to the public, how it was going to be provided. We even made space for delaying the launch of the report due to one of our members being out of town in order to accommodate that. You know, the report was due on the 31st. And so, you know, the idea that they hadn't understood what was in there was surprising to me, as the chair, given that we've been, you know, very collaborative through this time. And certainly, you know, if anything of importance that needed to be in there for this interim report, we've been focusing on, really the perpetrators and the byline of information that we need in order to provide, you know, real, constructive information around perpetrators, enablers, and really criminal activity. And so I think, you know, that it was a surprise to me that there was anything left out that wasn't part of a transparent process where we're all involved.
Noah Raess:
Just kind of looking at the commission, can you kind of walk us through what the next steps are for the commission and what is kind of the end goal of this commission as well?
Andrea Romero:
You know, for a truth commission we're not a prosecuting body. So, you know, when it comes to the things that we really, truly have committed to is getting a narrative of truth for the public to really understand how was Jeffrey Epstein and a number of perpetrators surrounding him were able to exist in the state. We really need to know why he was able to commit crimes here. If so, what those crimes were, who were the people involved in that operation and really the failure of government law enforcement to be able to prosecute this person in real time. You know, we don't have a perpetrator that we can point to right now other than Ghislaine Maxwell, who's in federal prison that has been held to account. And so when we look at a report like this, it's really the broadening of interest to the public about how this was able to take place in a state where there was no investigation that went down, where we left it to the federal government to do their job, and they didn't. And so, you know, this is a real failure for us who believe in the rule of law in New Mexico and believe in a justice system that works for everybody. You know, even in our interim report, we already started seeing favoritism to Jeffrey Epstein because of his wealth and power and connections. And again, laying that foundation is really important for us as we continue to seek, you know, the truth and, and give it to the public. So moving forward, it's really important that, you know, we get the facts straight, that we're really critical about the perpetrators, focused on the real folks who committed the crimes, and violated our laws and violated other human beings. This is really important for us. And what laws allowed for this to happen as well as lawmakers. We need to go into our next session with a clear understanding that our laws may not have served us well. And how is it that we can actually fix that? And working with the Department of Justice here in New Mexico, you know, they have yet to fully hand over all of the documents that we need, to really release to the public what's what went on there. So we're still waiting on that. We're waiting on a memorandum of understanding to continue to collaborate with them, which will make our jobs a lot easier when we're talking about definitive information about crimes committed. So I think there's a lot more to come. You know, we're getting ready to do a number of interviews with witnesses and others that worked at the ranch. Are preparing to actually go to the ranch ourselves and, you know, see the lay out there so we can talk to the public about what it is we find, in that space and, you know, really build that continue case for, you know, justice for survivors and what it is that we can do today, having had all of these statutes of limitations run to bring them real justice. So way more to come from us.
