NEW YORK -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Wednesday defended the presence of Steve Tisch of the New York Giants and Jed York of the San Francisco 49ers at the NFL's two-day annual fall meeting.
Tisch remains executive vice president and chairman of the board after he and his siblings transferred their stakes to their children earlier this year. Tisch's name was mentioned more than 400 times in the Jeffrey Epstein files released in January by the U.S. Justice Department.
After pledging at the Super Bowl there would be a review of Tisch's association with Epstein, Goodell said Wednesday, "Everything we've looked at, we understand and I think we're comfortable with him participating as the Giants suggest."
Asked if the investigation was ongoing, Goodell said: "I think always we'll look to see if there's any new information. We'll look at it, and we'll evaluate that."
Tisch said he knew Epstein but denied going to his island.
York returned from his six-game suspension for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy. He was arrested in a prostitution sting in Ohio in August and pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors but was still punished by the league.
"We went through a full process, obviously, to understand the facts, to understand the issues," Goodell said. "[We] looked at it under the context of our personal conduct policy, which applies to owners, commissioners, everybody else, players. And it's something we feel strongly about. I think we need to represent ourselves and our organizations properly. We saw a violation, and we've dealt with it from a discipline standpoint. That's concluded now, and so he'll be back representing the 49ers."
