NEW YORK – Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is coming under the spotlight in the US over his links to Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch after state officials launched a criminal investigation into the paedophile’s luxury hideaway.
Prosecutors in the state have reopened a probe into Epstein’s Zorro ranch in Santa Fe, a 7,500-acre property with stables, helipad and airstrip.
Dubbed “Playboy Ranch”, it has so far avoided the level of scrutiny placed on Epstein’s other properties, including his private island in the Caribbean and mansions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida.
But the release of three million files related to the late sex offender by the Department of Justice in January revealed disturbing claims over what happened at the remote ranch, where several accusers say Epstein abused young women and teenage girls.
‘He was at the ranch for at least three days’
New Mexico politicians have now set up a Truth Commission, which is starting to gather evidence and will run until the end of the year.
Andrea Romero, the state Representative who set up the commission, said there was “no question” that she would issue a subpoena to the former Duke of York if witnesses claimed he committed criminality. However, this cannot be enforced against a British citizen living outside the US, and any chance of compelling him to submit to interview would involve a complex and difficult process via the UK courts.
The sprawling Zorro Ranch, one of the properties where late financier Jeffrey Epstein is accused of abusing women and girls (Photo: Reuters/Drone Base/File Photo)“We know that he was at the ranch for at least three days just given the records that we have,” Romero told The i Paper. “It doesn’t matter the length of time [that has passed], if you committed a crime in our state, we will get that on the record.
“If he committed a crime in New Mexico or is on the record as committing a crime in New Mexico, we will subpoena him,” she said. ”There’s no question.”
The late Virginia Giuffre claimed the former Duke of York had sex with her in 2001 when she was 17, encounters set up by Epstein. One of those occasions was at Zorro, Giuffre wrote in a draft of her memoir that was published in US court documents in 2019.
In the unpublished manuscript, titled The Billionaire’s Playboy Club, Giuffre said she was expected to give Mountbatten-Windsor erotic massages and take him horseback riding at the ranch.
Mountbatten-Windsor has never acknowledged visiting Zorro, and has insisted that he had never had “any form of sexual contact or relationship” with Giuffre. He has always strongly denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Virginia Giuffre on one of Epstein’s horses on the ranch in New Mexico (Photo: Rollcall)In 2021, Mountbatten-Windsor was sued by Giuffre for sexual assault in a civil case in New York and her lawyers had to formally request help from the British government to serve him the papers: the former Duke settled the case for a reported £10m. He made no admission of liability in the out-of-court settlement.
Since Giuffre died by suicide last year, any investigation into Andrew would require a new accuser.
A former Zorro staff member, Deidre Stratton, claimed in a 2019 interview that Andrew stayed at the ranch for a number of days in the early 2000s with a woman believed to be a doctor and was served herbal tea to make him “horny”.
Investigators plan live hearings with survivors
US prosecutors investigated Zorro in 2019, but they were asked to stop and hand their information to the larger investigation into Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his “madam”, according to Romero and reports at the time.
Romero hopes to hold live hearings – which will be streamed online – following the model of the January 6 committee in Congress, which investigated the role of Donald Trump in the insurrection at the US Capitol in January 2021.
The New Mexico ranch was bought by a pro-Trump Republican four years after Epstein’s death (Photo: AP Photo/Savannah Peters)The commission will aim to speak to survivors who were there, obtain records and speak to former staff and anyone else with information. According to Romero, who is a lawyer, anyone who comes forward with an allegation of criminality will also be referred to the Department of Justice.
That would include any victims who say Andrew abused them, prompting a potentially embarrassing investigation that would strain relations between the US and the UK.
Previous efforts to get the former prince to cooperate show how difficult it would be to get him to testify, including the 2019 investigation by the FBI after Epstein’s suicide while awaiting trial. That went nowhere after Andrew refused to sit down for an interview with prosecutors.
Giuffre at a museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico (Photo: Rollcall)Andrew has also refused to appear before the US House of Representatives despite its members demanding that he did so.
Mountbatten-Windsor was last month arrested for alleged misconduct in a public office by British police for allegedly leaking sensitive information to convicted sex offender Epstein during his time as an official trade envoy. He was released under investigation and has not been charged.
Romero said she was “grateful” to Britain for taking action over Mountbatten-Windsor. “It’s very motivating, to be honest, to make us get to the bottom of it,” she said.
“Kudos to your government to continue to dig on this story, to ask us, why hasn’t justice been brought in in the United States where he [Epstein] resided?
“Honestly it’s very motivating to see that.”
The ranch, which has never been searched, is at the centre of some lurid allegations (Photo: US Department of Justice / AFP via Getty Images)Epstein bought the ranch from the family of former New Mexico governor Bruce King in 1993, and after his death, it was purchased by Donald Huffines, a prominent Trump-aligned Republican and former Texas state senator.
Romero said that she set up the commission, which is being run with three other state representatives, after reading the stories about Zorro. She said: “It was horrifying to me that these allegations had never been followed through with.
“My journey to getting to the Truth Commission was: how do you hold the federal government accountable when they haven’t done their job?
“I’m a student of international law and had read about truth commissions as a way when there is no justice available to you in your own government, here’s our various alternatives to getting there.
“So for us, it’s a method of being able to … get to a place where survivors of these atrocities can get on the record.”
Epstein and his jailed associate Ghislaine Maxwell (Photo: Handout / US Department of Justice / AFP via Getty Images)The Wild West
Among the lurid claims that emerged in the Epstein files last month was an email sent in November 2019, three months after the financier’s death, which claimed two “foreign girls” were strangled to death after “rough, festish sex” and buried on the site. The message claimed that the bodies were “somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro”.
A report in the New York Times from 2019 claimed that Epstein wanted to use Zorro as the base to seed a new human race with his DNA. Giuffre said in her published memoir, which came out last year, that Epstein wanted her to have his baby.
While the claims may sound far-fetched, Romero said that some victims she had spoken to had some disturbing stories. “There are accounts of women waking up around lab equipment,” she said. “What was happening?
“This is what’s so disturbing about this story and even just sitting with victims [recently is] they’re saying what was happening at the ranch was basically the worst of all of [Epstein’s] atrocities, across the board, across the trafficking and sex abuse.
“New Mexico was the worst. What does that mean? I don’t know without digging deeper into that story.”
One person cheering on the commission is Annie Farmer, an Epstein survivor who was taken to Zorro in 1996 when she was 16 by the paedophile and Maxwell.
Survivor Annie Farmer said there was a threatening sense of isolation at the sprawling ranch (Photo: KRQE via AP, File)Epstein promised it would be a gathering of students but she was the only one there and the mood soon turned sinister after she was persuaded to give Epstein a foot massage. During her stay, Maxwell also persuaded her to take off her clothes so the British socialite could give her a massage.
Farmer told The i Paper that she was “really glad” that Zorro was finally being taken seriously as it was a “vast property” where anything could happen.
She said: “When I was there, the thing that struck me was that it was like a world unto itself.
“There was an old Wild West movie set on the property, I got to ride a horse … but it was clear you were far removed from anyone else.
“There were only staff who answered to Epstein and Maxwell and that sense of isolation was threatening.”
Like Romero, Farmer called on anyone who knew anything to come forward.
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She said: “I interacted with multiple staff members while I was there. There was someone who seemed to be a ranch hand, a property keeper that was the kind of person who interacted with other young girls and women who were there.
“Staff that might have vital information and I’d hope they would come forward. It’s important that people do the right thing.”
The Department of Justice and federal prosecutors in New Mexico did not return calls and messages asking for comment. The i Paper has also requested comment from Buckingham Palace and Mountbatten-Windsor’s representatives.
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