Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
This episode, we're going to talk about Bill Richardson and
his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and how Jeffrey Epstein was
spreading a bunch of dough around New Mexico. Now, just
like in the other episode when we were talking about
George Mitchell, we're going to start out with an entry
from his Wikipedia page and we'll go from there. So
from the Wikipedia page, and for those of you who
might not be familiar with Bill Richardson, here's a little refresher.
William Blaine Richardson the third is an American politician, author,
and diplomat who served as the thirtieth Governor of New
Mexico from two thousand and three to twenty and eleven.
He was also the US Ambassador to the United Nations
and Energy Secretary in the Clinton administration, a US Congressman,
chairman of the two thousand and four Democratic National Convention,
and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. You would think
that a guy like this would be under as much
pressure as a dude like alex Acosta. But we didn't
see that, did we. Again, ask yourselves why in December
of two thousand and eight, Richardson was nominated for the
cabinet level position of Secretary of Commerce in the first
Obama administration, but withdrew a month later as he was
being investigated for possible improper business dealings in New Mexico.
Squeaky clean guy. You have here another one of these
squeaky clean politicians that you want to get up there
and carry water for. Who at the same time that
you're talking about how great he is, Well, he's hanging
out with Ebstein, breaking bread with Ebstein, and, according to Virginia,
abusing her. Although the investigation was later dropped, it was
seen to have damaged Richardson's career as his second and
final term in New Mexico's governor concluded, Look, this is
a guy who was avoided all of the real pressure here,
all of the real question uestionians. You think this guy
has been hammered the way somebody like Prince Andrew has been.
Of course not. Hell, we've hardly even heard about Bill
Richardson in this story. Does the legacy media even though
he exists. Richardson has occasionally provided advice on diplomatic issues
pertaining to North Korea. And has visited the nation on
several occasions, including efforts to release American detainees. He has
completed a number of private humanitarian missions, one of which
secured the release of US journalist Danny Fenster from a
Minimar prison in November of twenty twenty one. Twenty fifteen
court documents that were unsealed in twenty nineteen alleged Richardson's
possible involvement with the Jeffrey Epstein child sex trafficking ring.
Now you would think, but maybe just me that if
Jeffrey Epstein's name is included in the what third paragraph
of the opening section of your Wikipedia entry, that you
will I didn't have anything to do with the government
anymore that you know, Joe Biden or the current administration
wouldn't be sending you over to Russia to do any
negotiations on their part. But yet here we are another
person being ignored, another person who allegedly took part in
the abuse. And where are all of the voices calling
for accountability. We're all of the advocates that are out
there protesting this one, that one and the other one
doing the same with Bill Richardson. You see, it's a
bad look for people, and it says a lot about them.
And the people who are only trying to tell one
side of the story or only focusing on one side
of the aisle, well, they have other motivations when it
comes to whatever they're doing here. Me guess what, folks,
you know when they say some people just want to
see the world burn. I just want to see all
of Epstein's associates, no matter their political affiliation, get what's
coming to them, and politics be damned in the pursuit
of that. Now, don't get it twisted. We all have
our biases, we all have the things we believe in,
But when you're pursuing the truth, you have to be
able to suspend your bias and dig into the truth
no matter where it leads you. But a lot of
people can't do it. A lot of people are just
looking to score political points all these years into this case,
and I find it gross offensive and a huge roadblock
on the way to actually getting justice here, because when
you're trying to battle through all of that nonsense every day,
it's hard to stay focused on the task at hand.
For me, however, I stay laser focused. You know why,
because I am so mad at what happened here, so
beyond disgusted by the behavior of the institutions that are
supposed to safeguard people that there is no way that
I would ever be discouraged or knocked off the case here.
We are way too deep at this point, and there
is only one outcome, and that outcome is justice. Anything
less is unacceptable in my opinion. So here's an idea, NPR.
Instead of writing about conspiracy theories and getting in the
way of us pursuing that justice, why don't you write
some articles about Bill Richardson. Why don't you write some
articles about George Mitchell. Why don't you talk about their
deep connections and ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the fact
that they're being directly accused of partaking in the abuse.
Until you start doing that, until you start really digging
into the story and telling the real story, I will
continue to mock your work. Today, however, we're going to
talk about tax records in New Mexico and how they
show that Jeffrey Epstein was spreading around power and influence.
This article is from the Santa Fe, New Mexican and
the headline tax records show Jeffrey Epstein's power and influence.
This article was authored by Milan Siemenitch and it was
published originally April twenty fifth of twenty twenty and it
was up dated on May thirty first of twenty twenty one.
In a Life of Wealth, Sex crimes, and deal Making,
Jeffrey Epstein commanded attention. So did his seven seven hundred
and fifty nine acre Zoro Ranch in Santa Fe County. Well,
it didn't get any attention, did it. They've raided the
Zoro Ranch as many times as they've raided in my house,
which is exactly zero. Although if I keep talking the
way I do on here, I'm sure I'll be on
the radar at some point. Eight months after Epstein hanged
himself allegedly in a jail cell after being charged with
sex trafficking of girls in New York and Florida, the
ranch remains controversial. Yeah, it would be a lot less
controversial if somebody would kick in the door, wave it
in the four to four like Biggie and see what's
going on in the joint. But nobody cares. Nobody wants
to do anything about it, especially the politicians in New Mexico.
Its center pieces a hilltop man covering twenty six seven
hundred square feet. It contains four of the twenty six
bedrooms distributed throughout a compound. The rest are spread across
seven more dwellings across the Santa Fe County tax records. So,
as we all know, Zoro Ranch is a sprawling complex.
And as you see on Twitter, I've posted pictures before
of my adventure there. And when you look at it
from the front, you see in the very front there
before you get to the main house, there is a
development and that is where all of the help would stay.
The fake firehouse, the fake fire truck, all of that
stuff is visible right from the front. Yet the value
of that land is listed by county government at only
ten thousand dollars. Really ten grand, huh for the whole
entire kitt in kaboodle. Must be nice to know people,
because I have ten grand folks. If that's the case,
and I can buy Epstein's land for ten grand, I
can walk in right now with a cash offer. What's up,
let's do it. Santa Fe resident David Brown says the
assessor's office had a practice of undervaluing Epstein's property, handing
tax breaks to a tainted but powerful man. Epstein's land
is valued at ten K. My tiny Vista Primi a
lot is valued at seventy two K. So ask yourselves again,
why is a guy like Bill Richardson, who is running
around in a place like New Mexico wielding incredible power
protecting a guy like Jeffrey Epstein. Now you can say, well,
you can't prove that, but all of the signs point
to Epstein being protected in this state. So what's the deal?
Santa Fe County Assessor Gus Martinez told me Brown's comparison
is statistically correct, but it's deceptive. You gotta look at
the total value of the property, Martinez said, Brown and
I have done that. The assessor last year valued the
structures on Epstein's ranch at fifteen dollars and six excuse me,
fifteen point sixty eight million. Agricultural land was worth another
forty thousand, eight hundred and nineteen Altogether. That gave Epstein's
ranch a value of fifteen point seventy four million. His
real estate taxes for twenty nineteen were one hundred and
nine thousand, five hundred and seventy seven dollars on fifteen million.
How in the hell is that okay? I'm paying a
higher rate than that, And believe me when I tell you, folks,
I don't have Jeffrey Epstein got of money, Martinez said.
The ranch's value in taxes are projected to increase a
bit this year, even with the coronavirus pandemic devastating the economy. Look,
we know that the value of the ranch has been
propped up. We know that it opened that like twenty
seven and a half million. Now it's down to twenty
two and a half million, still up from what the
assessor was assessing it at Brown is an a peace
by the assessor's explanation. In twenty ten, with the country
in a recession, Epstein's ranch had a value of almost
twenty million dollars. So they're saying that it was fifteen
point seventy four million, meaning the local government inside of
New Mexico saying that. But the reality is when it
went on the market, it was twenty seven and a
half million. So why are all of the local government
apparatuses willing to work with Jeffrey Epstein in New Mexico
or at least previously. I won't say the current people
are because we don't have enough information. But man, oh man,
you wonder why Jeffrey Epstein was hanging out in New Mexico.
And this tells you everything you need to know for
tax purposes. The valuation dropped by five million in succeeding
years before starting a slight climb. Brown's theory is that
Epstein's power and political connections kept the ranch from receiving
much attention or a proper tax bill. Bingo. That is
exactly what it was. Epstein came into New Mexico, and
he came in there like an asteroid hitting the ground.
All that money to spread around, all that power, all
that influence. Everybody in the state knows. He's good friends
with Bill Richardson, He's good friends with the Kings. You
know how this goes. Epstein, in nineteen ninety three bought
Land and Stanley for what would become his ranch. The
seller was Bruce King, who was New Mexico's sitting governor
and one of the state's legendary politicians. King, a Democrat,
served longer as governor than anyone in New Mexico history.
He held office for twelve years. And look again, where
are all of the people that want to yip and
yap about politics? One way or the other, but have
nothing to say when we have a state that is
being run by guys like Bruce King, Bill Richardson and
they have obvious ties to Epstein. Don't you think this
would garner the same kind of look that Acosta got
And don't get it twisted. Acosta deserved everything he got.
The dude is such a smarmy, spineless son of a bitch.
Old boy. Deserved everything he got and more. But so
do these people. And it doesn't sit well with me
that there's not as big of a push here as
there was with Acosta. Let's hold them all accountable. And
for as much as I try here, folks, I do
my best, my reach is only so much. You know,
I have a relatively popular podcast on this subject, but
it doesn't come nowhere near the reach of one of
these outlets like New York Post or a Washington Post
or New York Times or you name it. And plus
they have the thing that really gets things going, and
that's resources, But they have no desire to really expose
what was going on in New Mexico. Why is that?
Do these girls not matter? Does New Mexico not matter? Well,
it matters to me, Epstein, who made millions managing a
hedge fund. Didn't have the callus tans of a rancher,
but longhorn cattle grazed on his property, accounting for most
of the compound being taxed at a rate for agricultural uses.
You really think Jeffrey Epstein was out there in a
pair of ass list chaps milking cows in the morning.
Absolutely not. Now. Me, on the other hand, that's my dream.
I can't wait for my girlfriend and I and my
family to be out of this rat race that is
called the nonsense of the city. I'm buying a nice
piece of land, hopefully in the next couple of years,
and we're out of dodge folks. I've had enough. I've
lived in the big city, in the inner city my
whole entire life. I'm not somebody who's from the suburbs.
I'm not somebody who's from some ritzy, glamorous part of
the city. I grew up in East Las Vegas, and
I've stayed in East Las Vegas. Could I live somewhere
else right now? If I want, sure? I could, But
why I'm comfortable here. I like my surroundings, and I
like people who are real. I don't like yuppies, and
I don't like fake and my abrasive personality, as you
all know, isn't very welcomed in places like suburban coffee shops.
This is why Brown's single home lot is valued at
nearly twice the amount some seventy seven hundred acres that
Epstein owned. By no standard was Epstein's property a typical ranch.
It had an aircraft hanger and a landing strip. Butler's
worked in the mansions, guesthouses dotted the grounds. There's also
a huge ass radio tower on this property, and nobody
knows what the hell that's for. Either a winner on
Wall Street, Epstein had access to politicians who dwarfed King's stature.
Epstein was friendly with two men who became president, Democrat
Bill Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. But all politics is local.
Epstein contributed cash to candidates seeking a variety of offices
in New Mexico. And that's one thing I certainly learned
as a political science major in college. I really learned
that everything's affected from the local level. The federal level
is a bunch of nonsense. Most of the time, these
people get elected and then they go along with whatever
the caucuses or whatever their speaker tells them to do.
Local politics for me is where everything moves at. They
have the control over my daily life, right They're the
ones that are going to say I can do this,
this or this. So for me, local politics rules the day.
And if we can get a handle on our local
politicians and elect good people, that's going to spread to
the national level. But it all starts locally. And Epstein
understood that. For as much as I say the guy's
a moron, he understood how this works. And from a
geopolitical perspective or a political strategy perspective, going for the
local politicians is the way to do it. There's less scrutiny,
there's less media attention, and they're the ones with their
hands at the level, at the level I mean at
the local level, so they can write laws that are
beneficial to you, such as not having to register as
a sex offender in their state. Democrat Bill Richardson, who
gave who was governor from two thousand and three to
twenty ten, received fifty thousand dollars in campaign contributions from Epstein.
Richardson sent the money to charity after Epstein in two
thousand and seven was ensnared in his first scandal, alleging
sex crimes. Many other politicians disassociated from Epstein at that point.
And do you think it was because they had to
come to Jesus moment and they were like, oh, our
relationship with Epstein was bad, we need to change this up.
Or was it we need to create some space between
us and do the five hundred meter run so that
we don't get caught up in this. It was never
about we're going to come forward and say, look, we
know what went on here. We have some information we'd
like to share. That's not how these people were. They
don't have to be held accountable for their behavior. That's
only for me and you. Police in Palm Beach, Florida
and FBI agents investigated complaints that Epstein had recruited girls
as young as thirteen to have sex with them in
his waterfront mansion. The federal government declined to prosecute Epstein. Instead,
he pleaded guilty to two state charges of soliciting prostitution,
one for procuring a girl younger than eighteen. And if
you were the district attorney of New Mexico Baldarus at
the time, don't you think you would look at this
case and really have your aids and everybody dive into
it and see what kind of injustice happened in Florida,
and say to your staff, that will not happen here.
We will not let that happen here. I want a
full on, parallel investigation. I don't trust the federal government
to do their job correctly, so we're gonna do it
for them. That's what I would have said, because my
job as the DA is to protect mykencs, to protect
the people of New Mexico. Let the federal government do
what it will, but I'm gonna do what I want.
And that didn't happen here. Epstein received a sentence of
eighteen months in jail. It turned out to be much lighter.
He was allowed to go to his office in Palm
Beach on a work release program and to Judge freed
Epstein after he served thirteen months. Now we know while
he was going to his office, and while he was
still out, he was still abusing girls, according to the
Attorney General of the US Virgin Islands. So while the
US government let him out, the DOJ and you know,
their buddies over at the FBI, he was still abusing people.
So how many times is the FBI, the DOJ going
to be directly involved in enabling Jeffrey Epstein before people
are willing to come out and call them out. Alex
Acosta was the US attorney who declined to pursue federal
charges against Epstein in Florida. Acosta went on to serve
as Trump's Secretary of Labor from twenty and seventeen to
twenty and nineteen. On becoming a cabinet secretary, Acosta would
say the case against Epstein was not air tight. The
Florida plea Bargain at least labeled Epstein as a sex offender.
Acosta said, yeah, right, where maybe in Florida that's it.
And Acosta, look, I think he's the biggest coward in
this whole entire ordeal, But I'm not gonna let people
set him up as the fall guy because that's where
it ends. Then, right, we can't have that happen. This
goes so much deeper, and there are so many people
involved in this. Here's what I want you to ask yourself.
Why isn't there as much of a buzz around Bill
Richardson and George Mitchell being involved with Epstein To the
levels that they were actually partaking in the abuse, according
to the allegations. And then you look at Acosta, who
was involved as well. But in setting up the a
plea deal. Shouldn't people be outraged by all of it?
But you have some folks who are only outraged by Acosta.
All you hear is Acosta, this Acosta, that Acosta, this
va fungoul Acosta. How about some of the other players,
how about some of the people behind the scenes. How
about some of the people who are still representing the
United States of America, like Bill Richardson. Federal prosecutors last
July brought a new round of sex trafficking charges against Epstein.
They accused him of praying on teenage girls in Florida
and New York. Epstein said all of his sexual encounters
were consensual, and he believed that partners were at least eighteen.
We know that's a lie from hindsight and from what
happened in the trial, we know that's a lie. No
jury heard the evidence. Epstein, sixty six, killed himself before
the case could proceed. Allegedly, Epstein was never accused of
committing crimes in New Mexico, but the allegations against him
in the East, refocused attention on his ranch and what
might have happened there. That's a lie. Girls have directly
said they were abused at Zoro Ranch. What does that
even mean? And the fact that nothing has happened there
is just unbelievable to me. Martinez, the assessor, says, Epstein's
money and influence didn't matter in New Mexico. Certain judgment
calls had to be made regarding Epstein's property, but no
public employee did anything wrong, Martinez said. Setting the value
of Epstein's property was difficult from the start. The assessor added,
there was not a house that big in the state
of New Mexico. We had nothing to compare it to.
The assessor said, just give me a break. Okay, please,
this is called gaslighting. That's exactly what this is. Look, well,
we don't want to be in the middle of all this,
so you know, we'll just say this was a very
difficult process to go through, and nobody was abused here.
If nobody was abused by Jeffrey Epstein in New Mexico,
then nine feet tall, I played basketball for the New
York Knicks, and I have a bank account. As long
as your leg at one point, Epstein protested the taxable
value of his ranch and mansion as excessive. This lesson
is tax burden. Martinez told of other factors that worked
in favor of Epstein. His matching showed where such as
cracking walls that dropped the value after the reduction. State
law was an obstacle to raising Epstein's taxes even as
real estate prices escalated. So who wrote those laws? Notice
they don't go into that, right. I'm pretty sure guys
like Bill Richardson and mister King were the ones who
wrote these laws. Now did they write those laws for
me or you? Or did they write them for people
like Jeffrey Epstein. Unless a property has been upgraded or expanded,
taxes can increase no more than three percent annually. We're
doing work with our hands tied behind our back, Martinez said.
To be sure, tax bills are insignificant compared to charges
of a man praying on teenage girls. Epstein's suicide turned
the case cold alleged suicide. His remains are in Florida
in a Florida cemetery. Most of what happened in New
Mexico is buried with him. First of all, this is
not a cold case. Second of all, the idea of
his shit being buried in New Mexico. Well, if that's
the case, you folks can call me from here on
out the human excavator, because I have had enough all
of these mforts, Bill Richardson, George Mitchell, all of these
politicians that the legacy media refuses to point out they
need to be brought up and put on the carpet.
And I can't shake what Nancy Pelosi's daughter told us.
Some of our faves are gonna be caught up in this. Well,
Miss Pelosi, where are you in making sure that your
faves who have been caught up in this are held accountable?
All right, folks, it's gonna do it for this one.
If you'd like to contact me, you can do that
at Bobby Kopuchi at ProtonMail dot com. That's b O
B B Y c A p U C c I
at ProtonMail dot com. You can also find me on
Twitter at b O B B Y underscore c A
p U C c I. The link that I discussed
can be found in the description box.