SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFL is looking into whether San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York will be punished for violating the league’s personal conduct policy after he was caught in a prostitution sting in Ohio.
“It’s being reviewed under the personal conduct policy,” Goodell said Wednesday at the owners’ meetings in Atlanta. “We’ll do that and when there’s something to be reported we’ll talk.”
York was arrested in a mobile home park by the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force after police said he was attempting to pay $160 for sex with a woman he believed to be a prostitute.
York was booked into jail and was released after posting a $5,000 bond. York was initially charged with engaging in prostitution, but prosecutors amended that to disorderly conduct. He pleaded no contest to that charge and to possessing criminal tools for using his phone to respond to an undercover online prostitution advertisement.
He was sentenced to one day in jail for both offenses to be served concurrently and was credited with one day served when he pleaded no contest. He also was fined $1,150. Police seized the $160 from York and that was later given to the human trafficking task force as part of the plea. York also completed an online course.
York has spent most of the summer in Ohio, where he grew up near Youngstown. He had filed for divorce from his wife, Danielle, in May, according to court records.
Owners have been previously punished for violating the personal conduct policy. The late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was suspended for six games and fined $500,000 following a guilty plea to driving while impaired in 2014.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was investigated but not punished by the league after he was arrested in Florida in 2019 for allegedly paying for sex with a woman at a massage parlor. The charge was later dropped after a court ruled that police violated the rights of Kraft and the other customers when they secretly installed video cameras inside massage rooms at the spa.
York was arrested on Sunday in East Palestine, Ohio, and pleaded guilty on Monday to two misdemeanors.
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AP Sports Writer Charles Odum in Atlanta contributed to this report.
