Speaking with the media at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday in Indianapolis, New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen and new head coach Jim Harbaugh declined to discuss team co-owner Steve Tisch’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
“Steve released a statement a few weeks ago about the regret, so I’m just going to leave it at that, I’m not going to comment any more on that,” Schoen said.
Part of a trove of emails released by the Department of Justice last month were several correspondences between Epstein and Tisch, a film producer whose family has owned a stake in the Giants since 1991. Epstein appeared to have scouted women for Tisch and connected him with some of them.
In one email, Tisch referred to a woman as a “present.” In another, Epstein coaches Tisch about talking to a woman he’d arranged to meet him.
“(R)eport just in, you did very well,” Epstein wrote. “(S)he wants to go to the play, she is a little freaked by the age difference but go slow … (I) will try to convince her not to return to Ukraine. having her crying worked.”
Tisch replied, “Nice report … Funny comment on crying!!!”
“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy and investments,” Tisch said in response to the release of the files. “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.”
Weeks before, the Giants hired longtime Baltimore Ravens head coach Harbaugh to try to turn around a moribund stretch for the franchise (44-104-1, one playoff appearance in last nine seasons).
“I have great respect for the ownership and all the people I’ve gotten to meet,” Harbaugh said Tuesday. “John (Mara) and Steve and Chris Mara and John Tisch and Carolyn Tisch and the Koch family. Have had nothing but great conversations, great interactions. And we’ve been talking about the business of football, the business of building our team, the business of putting staffs together. … That’s what our conversations have been about.”
