Dan Wetzel
Multiple Authors
It has been four weeks since the release of emails between sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch. According to that correspondence, Epstein repeatedly connected Tisch with various women, whom Tisch occasionally referred to as “my present” or “my surprise.”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, in response, said during Super Bowl week that the league would “look at all the facts” to determine whether a full investigation was in order for potential violations of the league’s personal conduct policy.
How’s the fact-finding mission going? Has it even started?
The NFL isn’t saying. The league this week referred all questions about Tisch and Epstein back to Goodell’s early February comments.
“Absolutely we will look at all the facts,” Goodell said then. “We’ll look at the context of those [emails] and try to understand that. We’ll look at how that falls under the [personal conduct] policy. I think we’ll take one step at a time. Let’s get the facts first.”
So has the NFL looked? And if so, who is doing the looking? And what exactly is the difference between looking at “all the facts” and conducting an “investigation”? Presumably the latter is more detailed and significant and requires additional inquiry and interviews.
Owners and team executives familiar with league processes told ESPN recently that they don’t perceive much urgency on the matter. The sources said they assume Tisch won’t attend next month’s league meeting in Phoenix, though no decision has been made. Most cynically, the sources said, they assume the league office is betting the public will eventually move on.
Tisch has not been accused of any crimes. However, that is not the standard of the league’s personal conduct policy, which demands “everyone who is part of the league must refrain from ‘conduct detrimental to the integrity and public confidence’ of the NFL.”
The policy even states that owners are held to a “higher standard” and subject to “more significant discipline” than players. The Tisch family has owned about half of the Giants since 1991, and Steve Tisch himself controls a slice of that.
The public “facts” that we know sure seem to call for a thorough investigation.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a single count of “solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18” and was sentenced to 18 months in prison (he served 13) and a year of house arrest. He was also required to officially register as a sex offender.
Additionally, Epstein settled numerous well-publicized lawsuits with victims, some of whom waged a public campaign decrying what they called a sweetheart deal that allowed him to avoid additional federal charges.
Despite all this, Tisch exchanged emails with Epstein in 2013 and even invited him to the owner’s box for a Giants game. Much of the correspondence was about the very subject that got Epstein in trouble — young women.
Tisch used Epstein as some sort of personal dating service to set the then-63-year-old Hollywood producer up with various women, whom Tisch in a statement said were all adults. Among the women discussed were Russians, Ukrainians and Tahitians. Once, Tisch asked whether a woman was “pro or civilian.” Another time he quizzed: “working girl?”
“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments,” Tisch wrote in a statement last month. “I did not take him up on any of his invitations and never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.”
Actually, many knew Epstein was a terrible person then, not just now.
And certainly someone of Tisch’s intelligence and life experience knows that adults can still be trafficked, especially those from poor and desperate backgrounds. That a victim has reached the age of consent might be a legal distinction but not necessarily an ethical one, which the personal conduct policy focuses on.
“We must endeavor at all times to be people of high character, we must show respect for others inside and outside our workplace; and we must conduct ourselves in ways that favorably reflect on ourselves, our teams, the communities we represent, and the NFL,” the policy reads.
Tisch’s name is mentioned at least 440 times in the Epstein files. Sorting through those “facts” doesn’t seem very time-consuming — they can be read in under half an hour, or at most in a few hours. The conduct pointed to in the documents might not be illegal, but it is creepy and concerning and it leads to myriad questions.
How, for example, did Tisch know Epstein, despite having just a “brief association,” was capable of introducing him to so many young women? Why exactly did Tisch think Epstein had that kind of influence over said women?
Did Tisch ever see or hear that any other women were actually underage, or that Epstein was engaged in any other disgusting activity? Was there ever any hesitation in inviting a convicted felon and registered sex offender to sit in the owner’s suite? If someone such as Jeffrey Epstein was deemed an appropriate guest, who else has Tisch been hosting in the owner’s suite?
Certainly Tisch understands that predators such as Epstein are aided in trafficking women via their association with rich, famous and powerful people who provide the illusion of legitimacy and safety. Even the most innocent of those who befriended Epstein played some role in this horror story.
There is nothing wrong with the league taking it “one step at a time” and analyzing the facts before jumping to a decision, but publicly, there aren’t any other facts available. Epstein died in prison in 2019. The women mentioned in the emails aren’t fully named. No known exculpatory evidence has emerged.
As such, the very low bar to, at the very least, begin a real investigation seems to be cleared.
If NFL executives want to say otherwise — that they believe there’s nothing to see here, that this isn’t worth inconveniencing a co-owner of one of the league’s signature franchises with a few questions, that everyone should move on and forget about old Steve Tisch and his predatory pen pal/wingman — they should come out and say why.
Nothing would be more “detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in” the NFL than one month of silence becoming two and three and … forever.
Leave a Reply