Albuquerque, New Mexico

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has sued Jeffrey Epstein's longtime attorney Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn, accusing them of concealing Epstein's sex trafficking operation at his Zorro Ranch near Santa Fe. The suit seeks to block the pair from receiving payments from Epstein's estate, valued at more than $100 million, arguing those funds should instead go to survivors. Torrez said the abuse "could [not] be done by just one man" and was facilitated by handlers, lawyers and accountants who have faced no real consequences.

Indyke and Kahn have told Congress they were unaware of the abuse, a claim Torrez disputes. Witnesses at Ghislaine Maxwell's trial alleged abuse occurred at the ranch, which Epstein bought in 1993 and later sold to the family of Texas Comptroller Don Huffines; probate proceedings continue in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Sheryl Williams Stapleton, a former New Mexico House majority leader and Albuquerque Public Schools administrator, pleaded guilty to state fraud and money laundering charges, three weeks after a federal jury convicted her of dozens of similar charges in a related case. State prosecutors had charged her with money laundering, racketeering and other counts in 2021, ahead of an October trial. Under the plea deal, all but four charges were dropped, with an agreed 10.5-year prison sentence and more than $1.8 million in restitution. A New Mexico Department of Justice spokesperson said the plea holds Stapleton accountable for defrauding taxpayers, and noted the federal sentence will exceed what the state system alone could impose.

Prosecutors say Stapleton, as the district's career and technical education director, steered more than $3 million in federal vocational education funds to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company owned by her friend and federal co-defendant Joseph Johnson, by pushing its invoices through procurement while he supplied blank checks to her. She resigned from the legislature and was fired by the district after a 2021 search of her home. Both she and Johnson, also convicted federally, have yet to be sentenced and have signaled plans to appeal.