Ethics Controversy Engulfs the Chair of New Mexico’s Epstein Commission (9/8/26)

New Mexico state Rep. Andrea Romero, the Democratic chair of the state’s Epstein Survivors Truth Commission, is facing growing calls to step aside amid an ethics controversy involving her outside employment and the commission’s own resources. Republican lawmakers questioned whether Romero violated state law by simultaneously serving in the Legislature and holding a paid part-time position with the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office. Romero said she had relied on a 2024 attorney general’s opinion when accepting the job, but Attorney General Raúl Torrez later said that opinion had been interpreted more broadly than intended and advised district attorneys not to employ sitting lawmakers. Romero subsequently resigned from the prosecutor’s office, but then accused Torrez of trying to disrupt the Epstein commission’s work, escalating an already bitter dispute between two officials who have both positioned themselves as pursuing accountability in the Epstein case.

The controversy intensified after Romero’s defense of herself was distributed through Dini von Mueffling Communications, a New York public-relations firm under contract with the Epstein commission for as much as $60,000. New Mexico Senate Minority Leader Bill Sharer accused Romero of using a taxpayer-funded contractor hired for the Epstein investigation to manage her personal political crisis, calling it potential self-dealing and asking the State Ethics Commission to investigate. Sharer went further and called on Romero to resign both from the Epstein commission and from the Legislature. The episode is particularly damaging for a commission built around exposing institutional failures, conflicts and abuses of power surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, because its chair is now being forced to answer questions about her own judgment, outside employment and use of commission resources. Romero and the public-relations firm did not respond to requests for comment in the reporting, while the controversy has added another layer of political turmoil to an investigation that was supposed to be focused squarely on what happened at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch and who failed to stop it.



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Calls grow for state lawmaker to resign from Epstein commission amid ethics controversy - KOB 4