A friend of ours recently commented that she thinks former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King and his wife Alice must be “rolling their graves” with the ongoing disclosures about Jeffrey Epstein and his Zorro Ranch. That property was sold to Epstein by the King family in the early 1990s.
King, arguably the most consummate politician to come out of New Mexico, was a straight-laced teetotaler who probably would never have sold the property if he’d known what kind of things would happen there.
I knew King very well when I was a journalist with United Press International and reported on him when he was governor. About the only vice I ever knew he had was an appreciation of a good cigar. He could work a room like no one else I ever knew — remembering almost everyone’s name, the names of their spouse, kids and even their dog. He’d give off a country hick kind of vibe, but he knew how to get things done for the benefit of our state.
Former President Bill Clinton once said that when he was governor of Arkansas and King was governor of New Mexico, “I’d always try to sit next to him at governors’ conferences” to gain some of his keen political insights.
I went to King’s ranch on more than one occasion while on news assignments. One anecdote I can recall is when a journalist from England accompanied a group of local reporters to see what a working cattle ranch was like. Looking over the large herd of cattle, she asked a nearby ranch hand: “How do you manage to milk all these cows on the open range.” He politely informed her that these were not dairy cows, while the other journalists chuckled in the background.
What prompted me to write about the Epstein connection in New Mexico was a front page article in an edition of the Ruidoso News that was given to me this week by a good friend.
The article was about a statement from the current mayor of the Village of Ruidoso who is running for reelection. One of his opponents had come across information that the mayor’s name was referenced in some of the recently released Epstein files. The file noted that Epstein owned a company affiliated with his private jet services that was called “Plan D.” As it turns out, the Ruidoso mayor also had a company named “Plan D” that was associated with a restaurant he once owned in the resort community.
“My name has appeared in files associated with Jeffrey Epstein due to an unfortunate coincidence that both Mr. Epstein and I owned entities named ‘Plan D,'” the mayor said in a statement.
He said that supporters of his opponent for mayor “have seized upon this unfortunate coincidence to make false and untrue accusations against me, deliberately misleading voters about my character and integrity.”
And it was recently disclosed that New Mexico gubernatorial candidate and former member of Congress Deb Haaland was identified as being a passenger on one of Epstein’s “Plan D” jets in 2014. The plane carried Haaland — then a candidate for lieutenant governor — and then gubernatorial candidate Gary King from Santa Fe to Washington. She said that she had no knowledge at the time that the aircraft belonged to Epstein.
It makes one wonder how many other New Mexico individuals lives have been touched by the Epstein scandal.
aero-cordero.com 