Donald Huffines, a former Republican state senator from Dallas and the current frontrunner in the Texas comptroller primary, purchased Jeffrey Epstein's sprawling Zorro Ranch in New Mexico back in 2023 — and has spent the time since quietly renaming the property, changing its address, and petitioning to slash its assessed value.

The revelation, first reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican, lands at an awkward moment. Huffines is running as a Trump-aligned fiscal conservative promising to bring "DOGE Texas Government" to Austin. His campaign website touts endorsements from Ted Cruz, Riley Gaines, and the late Charlie Kirk. He brands himself a "successful businessman, fifth-generation Texan and Trump Republican who will bring a private sector mindset to the comptroller's office."

Now he's the man who owns the ranch where some of Jeffrey Epstein's most disturbing conduct allegedly took place.

The property and its history

Zorro Ranch sits in southern Santa Fe County — a 26,700-square-foot mansion Epstein purchased in 1993 from former New Mexico Governor Bruce King. The property became central to the Epstein saga. As reported by the Daily Mail, multiple survivors said they were sexually abused there. One victim, identified only as "Jane," said she was 14 when she suffered abuse at Epstein's properties, including the New Mexico estate. Virginia Giuffre, who accused the UK's Prince Andrew of sexual assault, was also pictured at the ranch.

Perhaps most grotesquely, four sources told The New York Times that Epstein confided to scientists he wanted to spread his DNA across the human race by impregnating women at the property.

Epstein was found dead at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York in 2019. Two years later, the ranch was listed for sale at $27.5 million. A published report indicated the price eventually dropped to $18 million. It remains unclear what Huffines actually paid.

The rebranding effort

Since closing the deal, Huffines has moved to erase the Epstein association from the property itself. By 2024, the ranch had been renamed "San Rafael Ranch." The address changed from 49 Zorro Ranch Road to 49 Rancho San Rafael Road. He also petitioned the Santa Fe County assessor to lower the property's assessed value from $21.1 million to something more favorable, arguing in part that the "notoriety" of the property and the final sales price justified a reduction.

The assessor agreed. In December 2024, the property's value was set at $13.4 million for fiscal year 2023 — a $7.7 million haircut.

Allen Blakemore, a spokesperson for the Huffines family, offered a carefully worded statement to the Santa Fe New Mexican:

"Four years after Mr. Epstein's death, the Huffines family purchased property in New Mexico listed at public auction, whose proceeds benefited his victims."

Blakemore added:

"Prior to the listing auction, they had never visited the property."

The framing is deliberate—emphasizing the time gap, the public nature of the sale, and the benefit to victims. It's not an unreasonable defense on its face. People buy properties with ugly histories. Land doesn't carry guilt.

But the political optics are another matter entirely.

The political problem

A candidate running on fiscal discipline and anti-establishment credentials now has to explain why he bought one of the most infamous estates in modern American history — and then quietly lobbied to cut its tax assessment by more than a third. For a man campaigning to oversee Texas's finances, the assessed-value petition is the kind of detail that writes opposition ads by itself.

Huffines's campaign site promises to "abolish woke DEI" and "eliminate benefits for illegal aliens." His bio declares he has "a proven record of fighting for taxpayers, standing with President Trump and leading with courage when it matters most." These are standard conservative priorities, and there's nothing wrong with any of them. But a comptroller candidate who negotiates down property valuations on a ranch he's trying to strip of its former owner's name invites questions about whether the private sector mindset he's selling includes minimizing his own tax burden.

The purchase itself isn't disqualifying. The secrecy is what compounds the problem. Huffines didn't announce the acquisition. He renamed the property. He changed the address. None of that is illegal, but all of it suggests a man who understood exactly how this would look — and chose concealment over transparency.

New Mexico moves toward a reckoning

Meanwhile, the state where the ranch sits is trying to confront what happened there. A New Mexico House measure would establish a "truth commission" to investigate whether illicit activity was conducted at the ranch and to identify anyone who may have been involved. The measure only requires House approval — no Senate vote, no governor's signature. A hearing is scheduled for Monday.

State Rep. Andrea Romero framed the urgency plainly:

"When we heard the allegations from his various victims of people who alleged that they were trafficked here, that they were sexually abused here - some as children - I'm just heartbroken. And it's so disgusting to think that that happened on our watch at all."

Romero said lawmakers want to "get everything on the record in the timespan that [Epstein] was here."

There's a reasonable conservative skepticism of "truth commissions" as political theater. But the Epstein case is different. The mechanisms that shielded this man — wealth, political connections, institutional cowardice — represent exactly the kind of elite impunity that populist conservatism claims to oppose. If New Mexico wants to put facts on the record about who visited that ranch and what happened there, that serves accountability, not ideology.

What this is really about

The Epstein story has always been about the people who enabled him, ignored the signs, or benefited from proximity to his world. The disgraced financier is dead. The ranch is just a building. But the public's appetite for answers about the wider Epstein network hasn't diminished — it's intensified.

Huffines may have simply seen a good real estate deal at a public auction. Wealthy men buy distressed properties every day. But wealthy men running for statewide office on a platform of transparency and taxpayer advocacy don't usually do it in the shadows. The question isn't whether buying the ranch makes Huffines guilty of anything. It doesn't. The question is why a man who wants voters to trust him with the state's books didn't trust them with this.

A new name on the mailbox doesn't change what happened behind those walls. And voters tend to notice when someone works harder to change an address than to explain a decision.