A rally outside of Jeffrey Epstein's former Zorro Ranch near Stanley in March.
Two women who say they were abused at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch have reached out to a Santa Fe sexual assault support center since April, the organization’s director says.
Maria José Rodríguez Cádiz, executive director of Solace Sexual Assault Services, said one woman reached out by phone and one in person in April and May. One of the women continues to receive support services, she added, though she declined to provide any further information about the women, including whether they are local residents.
María José Rodríguez Cádiz is executive director of Solace Sexual Assault Services.
The “great majority” of sexual assault victims who reach out to Solace — Northern New Mexico’s primary provider of sexual assault services — are locals, Rodríguez Cádiz said.
She wasn’t sure whether the two women who recently alleged abuse at Zorro Ranch have spoken with officials investigating activities there during the time it was owned by Epstein but said she “would not be surprised if they had.”
So far, only one New Mexico woman has spoken publicly about alleged abuse by Epstein, but the calls to Solace raise questions about whether more local women were abused.
Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell sometimes called on local massage therapists when they stayed at the ranch, U.S. Justice Department files show. At least one of them, New Mexico native Rachel Benavidez, has accused him of abuse.
Benavidez first went to the ranch in 1999 as a 25-year-old massage therapist for Maxwell and then Epstein, she hastold national media. She says Epstein sexually assaulted her there over the course of around two years.
Benavidez has testified at the last two hearings of a legislative panel known as the “truth commission,” which is investigating Epstein’s activities in the state.
“We survivor sisters have cooperated with the FBI, and with law enforcement. We have also been ignored and discredited, victim blamed, and victim shamed into silence. Some of us for decades at a time,” she told the panel last month.
Many of the women who have publicly accused Epstein of abuse at the ranch, including Annie Farmer, Virginia Giuffre and Chauntae Davies, were flown in from out of state.
