The emails are disgusting, objectifying and show an astounding lack of judgment. Steve Tisch, the Giants co-owner and a Hollywood producer, used the world’s most notorious sex trafficker as his personal pimp to set up dates with women that he talked about like swag bags at a movie premiere.
“Is my present in NYC?” Tisch asked Jeffrey Epstein — yes, that Jeffrey Epstein — in one 2013 email. When Epstein replied yes, Tisch asked, “Can I get my surprise to take me to lunch tomorrow?”
The word creepy doesn’t begin to describe it, and that was just one of the many interactions between Tisch and the disgraced financier, as first reported by The Athletic on Friday afternoon. Tisch would ask if the women that Epstein wanted to set him up with were “pro or civilian” or a “working girl,” once demanding to know if a Russian woman he might date was “fun.”
“Did you contact the great ass fake tit (name redacted) she’s a character, short term, has an older boyfriend going to acting school, a 10 ass,” Epstein wrote to Tisch in one especially cringey email.
To be clear: There is no indication in these emails, which were part of three million pages that the Justice Department released on Friday, if Epstein arranged meetings with underaged women for Tisch. That is an important distinction that might spare the 76-year-old from the harshest punishment — not just from the NFL, of course, but from society as a whole.
Still, the damage to his reputation is complete and irreparable. He has to disappear now.
The Giants must distance themselves from Tisch in anyway possible, even if the easy outcry from this — “SELL THE TEAM!” — is a fantasy. Not only did Patriots owner Robert Kraft recover from his 2019 trip to Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida, and the subsequent solicitation charges, he might be welcomed into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next weekend ahead of his former six-time Super Bowl winning coach.
The rules are different for rich, white men. That doesn’t mean the Giants can’t keep Tisch, whose family owns 45 percent of the team, as far away from the franchise as possible. He should resigned immediately as Chairman and Executive Vice President and transfer those roles to his brother, Jonathan, to remove his name from the team organization chart entirely.
Steve Tisch already has backed away from the public eye since the suicide death of his daughter, Hilary, in 2020. He hasn’t given an interview about the team in years, although he played a role in recruiting John Harbaugh as the team’s new head coach this month.
Can you imagine how Harbaugh feels now? He arrived just two weeks ago as a franchise savior, and already, he is discovering that the rot within this team goes far beyond the subpar product that has appeared on the field over the past decade. The fans who hoped Harbaugh’s hire would turn the page of the bad headlines have learned quickly that one man can’t make all of the Giants’ problems go away overnight.
John Mara, the team’s other co-owner, is fighting for his life amid a cancer diagnosis. Chris Mara, his brother, assumed the role of ownership’s chief spokesman during and after the Harbaugh courtship, which indicates that he’ll have a bigger role. The team also sold a 10 percent stake in the team to billionaire Julia Koch and members of her family this fall, further clouding the ownership picture.
One thing is certain: Tisch shouldn’t be around this team anymore. During one telling email exchange in which they discussed one of Tisch’s recent dates, Epstein wrote to Giants co-owner, “I am happy to have you as a new but obviosly (sic) shared interest friend.”
That was the company that the co-owner of the Giants chose to keep. Just when you thought this franchise had found its footing, it lands smack in the middle of the Epstein files instead.
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