Dan WetzelFeb 2, 2026, 07:30 AM ETCloseDan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.Multiple Authors
Law enforcement first investigated Jeffrey Epstein in 2005, after he was accused of paying a 14-year-old girl for a massage. By 2006, as the accusations widened, the FBI got involved.
In 2010, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison for “solicitation of prostitution with a minor.” Over the next few years, he settled lawsuits with numerous victims alleging similar behavior. These received extensive media coverage.
None of this stopped New York Giants co-owner and Hollywood film producer Steve Tisch, in 2013, from regularly exchanging emails with Epstein in which the sex offender appears to serve as Tisch’s skin-crawling personal “dating” service.
Epstein, according to documents that became public Friday in a Department of Justice evidence dump, continually offered up women — Russians, Ukrainians, Tahitians — whom Tisch would refer to as “my present” or “my surprise.” Other times he inquired if they were “pro or civilian.”
The emails detail a relationship so close that Tisch invited Epstein to Giants games, including in his personal suite to see a contest against the Philadelphia Eagles. There is no evidence Epstein ever attended any games.
“Everyone who is part of the league must refrain from ‘conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in’ the NFL,” the league’s personal conduct policy reads. “It is not enough simply to avoid being found guilty of a crime in a court of law. We are all held to a higher standard and must conduct ourselves in a way that is responsible, promotes the values of the NFL, and is lawful.”
The policy later notes that, “Ownership and club or league management have traditionally been held to a higher standard and will be subject to more significant discipline when violations of the Personal Conduct Policy occur.”
The entire situation was disturbing even before the 76-year-old Tisch released an out-of-touch and dismissive public statement Friday evening.
Epstein was, indeed, a terrible person (to understate it), but he was publicly known to be a terrible person years before you decided to become, as Epstein put it one time, “a new but obviously shared interest friend.”
If this is how Tisch communicates with people with whom he has a “brief” association, then exactly what does he discuss with his old friends?
Tisch asserts all of the women were “adults.” Perhaps that is true, but although it would be an important legal distinction, it matters little morally.
If the standard for appropriate behavior for an NFL owner is simply that they didn’t have relations with a minor or didn’t actually travel to “Epstein Island,” then let Goodell come out and say as much.
Steve Tisch was born into privilege, educated at elite institutions and blessed with an illustrious business career.
Tisch should be smart enough to comprehend that one of the reasons Epstein was able to control so many girls and women is that he was surrounded by power, money and prestige. Every rich and famous celebrity, politician, sports figure and businessman whom Epstein could point to as a friend provided a measure of credibility and safety that aided in his ability to lure additional victims.
Tisch’s statement tried to make clear that he and Epstein, when not discussing whether a woman from Tahiti was a “working girl” or if Epstein could arrange for “my surprise to take me to lunch tomorrow,” focused on “movies, philanthropy, and investments.”
Epstein died in 2019. Tisch is not under any known criminal investigation, and the emails themselves don’t indicate he broke any law.
That doesn’t mean the NFL shouldn’t demand a full accounting of what these emails represent, what his relationship with Epstein centered on, or if Tisch understands the ramifications for untold victims … or “presents,” as he called them.
Dan WetzelFeb 2, 2026, 07:30 AM ETCloseDan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.Multiple Authors
CloseDan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.
Here’s guessing that “shared interest” wasn’t the NFC East title chase.
Tisch’s statement serves only to raise additional questions.
Even the most innocent of Epstein’s confidants owe the world some introspection and atonement.