SAN JOSE, Calif. — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday the league has not begun investigating emails between New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, choosing to first “get the facts” of the exchanges.
Goodell was pressed several times by reporters about emails between Tisch and Epstein that were among three million documents released last week by the US Department of Justice. The documents — which discussed interactions with several women — were pulled from multiple investigations into the disgraced billionaire financier, who was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Epstein subsequently died by suicide a month later in his New York City jail cell while awaiting trial.
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Asked if the league was looking into the interactions between Tisch and Epstein and considering discipline for the Giants co-owner, Goodell said during his pre-Super Bowl news conference that the league was aware of the emails but had not yet progressed to the point of an investigation.
“You might be getting ahead of yourself in the second half,” Goodell said of considering the discipline for Tisch. “We’re going to look at all the facts. We’re going to look at the context of those and try to understand that — we’re going to look at how that falls under the [NFL’s personal conduct] politics. But first let’s get the facts.”
Asked to clarify if this meant Tisch was under investigation, Goodell reiterated that the NFL would first try to determine the “facts” and then conclude whether they warranted an investigation.
“I don’t even know the status of the [DOJ’s document] release,” he said. “I know three million documents were released last week. Listen, we will continue to follow any of the facts that come out and determine whether to open an investigation based on those facts.”
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Tisch’s name has appeared more than 400 times in documents since the DOJ’s release Friday, including some that relay social interactions between the two men and others with specific — and sometimes graphic — conversations about several women whose names were written in the files. The emails covered a period of time several years after Epstein had served nearly 13 months in the Palm Beach Country jail, after pleading guilty to a pair of Florida state charges, including engaging in prostitution with an underage girl.
Included in the exchanges, Tisch asked Epstein several questions about the women, including whether one was a “working girl” or if another was “pro or civil.” In one email, Epstein asks Tisch, “I contacted the fake ass great [expletive]…” referring to a person whose name was redacted. The Athletic was the first to report the existence of the emails after the DOJ’s release Friday. In response, Tisch released a statement through the Giants, describing his relationship with Epstein as a “brief association” that he regretted.
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“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments,” Tisch said in the statement. “I didn’t take him up on any of his invitations and I never went to his island. As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I very much regret associating with.”