The New Mexico Department of Justice is suing the U.S. Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for access to unredacted files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his former New Mexico ranch as part of a criminal investigation it reopened earlier this year.A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses the U.S. DOJ of unlawfully “stonewalling” the state’s investigation into alleged crimes that took place at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch by refusing to share the files and other related information.“New Mexico has a duty to protect survivors and investigate crimes committed in our state so that perpetrators can be held accountable,” said New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez in a statement. “Their delay is actively hurting our criminal investigation and delaying justice Epstein survivors deserve.”An aerial view shows the former ranch of Jeffrey Epstein outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Roberto E. Rosales via Getty ImagesThe 40-page complaint outlines the state’s efforts to investigate the property located outside of Santa Fe after its first review was suspended in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors.During a phone call in July 2019, New Mexico officials said, the Justice Department directed the state to “stand down from its investigation into Epstein’s potential criminal activity in New Mexico” after the state proposed a coordinated investigation.In exchange for this and the state sharing its investigative findings, the DOJ allegedly said it would “pass along any information” about any potential state crimes it had found, which the state said never happened.“USDOJ internally discussed Epstein and his associates’ criminal activities tied to New Mexico and discussed taking investigative steps,” the state said, “but federal law enforcement failed to ever search Zorro Ranch.”“USDOJ likewise failed to make any attempt to seize Zorro Ranch and Epstein’s associated New Mexico property and failed to do anything else to preserve or gather evidence of Epstein’s crimes in New Mexico,” the suit states.Crosses, flowers and other mementos are displayed outside Jeffrey Epstein's former Zorro Ranch on April 3, 2026.via Associated PressIt was later revealed, through the documents released last year under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, that Zorro Ranch was in fact one of the locations where Epstein’s victims were taken, the state said.The property was referenced more than 13,000 times in the redacted files. Other locations in New Mexico, “where victims were trafficked, groomed, and assaulted,” were also referenced 5,000 times, the lawsuit states.A spokesperson for the DOJ told HuffPost that it was under no legal obligation to share the unredacted files, citing victim privacy concerns.“The Epstein Files Transparency Act does not require, and the protective orders in place in the Southern District of New York do not permit, disclosure of victim-identifying information carte blanche, and New Mexico has provided no lawful basis to justify such sweeping disclosures,” the spokesperson said in a statement.“Protecting victim privacy remains a top priority for the Department, and neither Touhy requests nor a desire to cooperate outweighs that privacy,” they added, citing the state’s formal written requests to the government. “DOJ remains available to assist New Mexico’s investigation consistent with the law and binding court orders.”The state’s lawsuit came the same day that a bipartisan truth commission, established in February by New Mexico’s House of Representatives, released an interim report on its own investigative findings on the ranch.The committee’s 119-page report did not appear to reveal any significant findings and instead detailed some of the challenges it has faced with redactions in federal reports, which it said appear inconsistent and arbitrary. It said it has also not been able to reach an agreement with the state’s DOJ on sharing investigative information.The committee is required to submit a final report on its findings by the end of this year.