“Until we are heard, until survivors are heard and believed, then I don’t think there’s ever going to be any justice,” Benavidez, 52, stated in a current interview, her first because the Justice Department in January released millions of documents that introduced renewed consideration to Epstein’s actions at the ranch, and missed alternatives to examine them.
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The disclosures, together with an unsubstantiated nameless declare that two “foreign girls” died throughout intercourse and have been secretly buried on the property, prompted state authorities to launch new investigations this 12 months — a legal case led by the New Mexico Department of Justice and a “truth commission” led by the state Legislature.
Benavidez says she would willingly inform investigators what she endured. Even although Epstein is lengthy useless and his chief confederate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in jail, Benavidez says extra individuals want to be held accountable.
“I don’t think it’s too late for the truth to come out about people that were involved and helped him and turned a blind eye to his crimes,” Benavidez stated. She has not publicly shared names.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez stated he’s dedicated to finishing an investigation that ought to have been achieved years in the past. His workplace searched the ranch in March, the primary time legislation enforcement had achieved so. And he promised to give survivors a protected place to share their experiences.
“We are going to do everything we can to get to the bottom of what happened there, follow every lead, no matter how uncomfortable it is or how long it takes, and most importantly, we need to center the voices of victims in this process,” Torrez informed NBC News.
New Mexico has lengthy been handled as an undercard within the Epstein saga, though allegations of abuse there date practically way back to allegations in Florida and New York.
He purchased the ranch in 1993 and visited a number of occasions a 12 months, usually with ladies or younger girls. In 2008, he pleaded responsible in Florida to paying underage ladies for intercourse and lower a take care of prosecutors that spared him severe jail time and ended a extra expansive federal investigation that included New Mexico. In 2019, federal authorities in New York arrested him on a brand new set of costs that did not point out New Mexico. The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office opened its personal investigation of Epstein that 12 months, however stopped at the request of the prosecutors in New York, in the end sending them the case file.
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, who led the 2019 investigation, stated he anticipated the prosecutors in New York to share proof that might be used to cost Epstein with state crimes, however he heard nothing from them — not after Epstein was discovered useless in a jail cell in August 2019, nor after they secured a conviction of Maxwell in December 2021.
Like the lover deal twenty years in the past in Florida, the missed alternatives in New Mexico signify “a black eye in the justice system,” Balderas stated. “Not everybody’s case gets reviewed the same, and sometimes law enforcement and prosecutors don’t do a good job at sharing information and working together to get the conviction.”
Torrez stated he has requested the Justice Department for unredacted copies of paperwork within the Epstein recordsdata that point out Zorro Ranch. The Justice Department stated it welcomed the brand new investigation and was prepared to present assist.
Benavidez, a New Mexico native, first got here to the ranch in late 1999 when she was a 22-year-old newly licensed therapeutic massage therapist. She stated she was employed first to therapeutic massage Maxwell, and later Epstein. She recalled the fantastic thing about the panorama as she drove to the ranch, which felt intimidating and isolating. In an FBI interview, she described passing via safety and driving a winding dust highway to a mansion the place she descended right into a basement-level therapeutic massage room, passing footage of topless girls.
At first, Benavidez stated, Epstein and Maxwell appeared like eccentric wealthy individuals with highly effective connections who paid good cash and will assist her discover extra alternatives. Her impression darkened as Epstein’s massages turned aggressively sexual; Benavidez stated he raped her. Ashamed and scared, she stated nothing. When she tried to flip down requests to return, Epstein’s employees pushed her till she relented.
Benavidez stated that for some time she thought she was the one one being abused at the ranch. “When I would go out there and I would see all these girls who I thought were Victoria’s Secret models, there was no way he was doing that to them,” she stated.
This went on for 2 years. She stopped going to the ranch when Epstein requested her to signal a nondisclosure settlement, however the abuse haunted her, sending her adrift. For a very long time, she blamed herself.
She stored the assaults a secret till Epstein’s 2019 arrest, when extra victims started talking publicly. When she got here ahead, she met lots of the others, together with 5 “survivor sisters” whom she leans on for help. “They helped me to carry the weight of this very heavy issue. Without them, I couldn’t do this,” Benavidez stated.
