SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP) — Authorities served a search warrant Wednesday at a home connected to the man convicted of killing 19-year-old college student Kristin Smart in 1996, according to law enforcement and media reports.
Her remains were never found and she was declared legally dead in 2002. Paul Flores was convicted in October 2022 and ultimately sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the search in the central coast town of Arroyo Grande is related to the ongoing investigation into Smart’s disappearance. Flores’ mother, Susan Flores, lives at the home, according to public records and reporting by a podcast that has closely followed the case.
“The Sheriff’s Office remains committed to bringing Kristin home to her family,” the sheriff's statement said. “No further information is available.”
The “Your Own Backyard” podcast, which helped investigators crack the case by bringing forward additional witnesses, first reported the search and said the home belongs to Flores' mother. Attempts to reach Susan Flores for comment were not immediately successful. The search was ongoing Wednesday afternoon.
Kristin Smart went missing from California Polytechnic State University in May 1996. Prosecutors alleged she was killed during an attempted rape and that the last person she was seen with was Flores, a fellow student.
Flores and his father, Ruben Flores, were arrested in 2021.
Prosecutors alleged Smart’s remains were buried on Ruben Flores’ property and later moved. He was acquitted of accessory charges. That property is different from the one searched on Wednesday.
Paul Flores was sentenced in March 2023 to prison, where he has been physically attacked at least twice.
In 2024, a judge ruled that Paul Flores must pay just over $350,000 to Smart's family for costs they incurred after her death.
The family has said it would forgo restitution if Flores would tell them where Kristin’s body was. Flores’ attorney, Harold Mesick, said in 2024 that the defense did not know where her remains are. Flores maintains his innocence.
The county district attorney’s office said it was helping the sheriff's office with the investigation.
“While those responsible for Kristin’s death — and those with knowledge of her whereabouts — could provide answers at any time, we remain firmly committed to using every lawful tool available to locate Kristin’s remains and to support her family until she is brought home,” District Attorney Dan Dow said in a statement.
This photo provided by San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office shows authorities conducting a search on Wednesday, May 6, 2026, at a home in Arroyo Grande, Calif., connected to the man convicted of killing Kristin Smart. (San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office via AP)
FILE - This undated photo released by the FBI shows Kristin Smart, the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo student who disappeared in 1996. (FBI via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared Wednesday before a House committee investigating sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, trying to explain to lawmakers his contact with the financier after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
The Cabinet member was the latest powerful political figure to appear before the House Oversight Committee. He has previously given contradictory statements about his relationship with Epstein, but he said he has done nothing wrong and welcomed the closed-door interview with lawmakers.
The transcribed interview is a test of how much scrutiny lawmakers will apply to powerful men who kept company with Epstein even after his conviction. Trump's administration has tried unsuccessfully for more than a year to move past the issue.
Lawmakers emerged from the private interview with vastly different assessments of Lutnick's answers. The committee chairman, GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said Lutnick had been “forthcoming” in describing limited interactions with Epstein. Democrat accused Lutnick of lying and evading their questions.
Lutnick is the highest-ranked administration official, besides President Donald Trump, to be named in the Epstein case files. The Republican president has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago. Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Several Democrats have called for Lutnick to resign. A few Republicans, including Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, have said he should at least testify before the committee.
“He was evasive, nervous. He was dishonest,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va. “He would not admit to lying, which he clearly did.”
Lutnick has played down his ties to Epstein, who was once his neighbor in New York City. Under questioning from Democrats during an unrelated hearing earlier this year, Lutnick described their contact as a handful of emails and a pair of meetings in 2011 and 2012.
But that admission came after Lutnick had previously claimed on a podcast last year that he had decided to “never be in the room” with Epstein after a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home, which included a massage table, disturbed Lutnick and his wife.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state sex offense charges in Florida, including soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
“I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him,” Lutnick told senators in February when he was asked about Epstein during a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
But Lutnick, who was previously the head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, actually had an hourlong engagement at Epstein’s home in 2011. His family then visited Epstein’s private island in 2012 for lunch.
Committee Democrats asked Lutnick repeatedly about that visit, but came away from the interview frustrated with Lutnick and accused him of evading their questions. They said Lutnick said he remembered little about the island visit and did not see anything that raised concern.
During a break in the interview, Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., said Lutnick “claims that when he said, ‘I would never be in a room again with Jeffrey Epstein,’ he meant only him and Jeffrey Epstein.”
The federal release of case files on Epstein also showed that Epstein and Lutnick had kept in contact through email. Lutnick in 2018 emailed Epstein about a proposed expansion of a museum in their neighborhood that would have blocked the view from their homes. Epstein also gave $50,000 to a 2017 dinner honoring Lutnick, while Lutnick invited Epstein to a 2015 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. In 2013, they both invested in the same business venture.
“I haven't seen wrongdoing in the email correspondence, but he wasn't 100% truthful with whether or not he had been on the island,” Comer said. He added that the committee planned to later release the transcript of the interview and “let the American people judge whether the credibility was damaged or not.”
Democrats said Lutnick also backed away from his statement in an interview last year that Epstein was the “greatest blackmailer ever."
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said Lutnick told him that he was only “speculating” when Lutnick made the blackmail claim.
The interview was not recorded on video, as the committee has done with depositions for others, including former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state. Comer said the decision not to video the interview, for which Lutnick volunteered, was keeping with the committee's practice.
To Democrats, that decision allowed Lutnick to escape the same kind of scrutiny as others had.
“The level of the lies that are taking place inside that room without video is unbelievable and part of this egregious cover-up,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz.
Comer said Democrats were only trying to score political points. “This is a serious investigation,” he said.
The chairman argued it made the committee's inquiry easier when subjects consented to an interview, rather than resist congressional demands.
“Nobody wants to be videoed. If you come in, you work with us, then you know, you might not have to be videoed,” he said.
The White House has continued to express support for Lutnick, who is one of the biggest boosters of Trump's tariff strategy. He has been close to Trump for years and helped raise money for his 2020 and 2024 campaigns.
The committee is also scheduled to hear testimony on May 29 from Pam Bondi, who was pushed out as attorney general last month.
Follow the AP's coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arrives for a deposition as part of the House Oversight Committee's investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., speaks to reporters before questioning Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as part of the panel's investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., speaks to reporters before questioning Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as part of the panel's investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arrives for a deposition as part of the House Oversight Committee's investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arrives for a deposition as part of the House Oversight Committee's investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, April 17, 2025, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, FIle)
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick delivers his budget estimates to the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies budget hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick delivers his budget estimates to the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies budget hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
FILE - Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attends an event on health care affordability in the Oval Office at the White House, April 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
