New Mexico’s commissioner of public lands is scheduled to announce plans to terminate livestock grazing leases to a holding company controlled by financier Jeffrey Epstein before his death last month.
First-year Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard scheduled a morning news conference on Wednesday to announce the cancellation of two leases to Cypress Inc.
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell August 10 while awaiting his sex trafficking trial. He owned an isolated hilltop mansion and ranch in central New Mexico. A small portion of the ranch extended across state trust land under a 1990s-era contract with the State Land Office that was renewed as recently as 2016.
New Mexico’s attorney general says the state trust land was leased to provide privacy and barely if ever was used for grazing livestock.