Former NFL football players Derrick Brooks, left, Jerry Rice, Charles Haley and Ronnie Lott at the White House for the pardoning of former 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. | AP Photo Trump pardons former 49ers owner charged in fraud gambling scandal

President Donald Trump on Tuesday granted a full pardon to Edward DeBartolo Jr., the former San Francisco 49ers owner who was indicted for failing to report an extortion attempt by former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards.

In 1998, DeBartolo pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony when he paid Edwards $400,000 for a riverboat gambling license in Louisiana. He avoided prison, but was fined $1 million and suspended for a year by the National Football League, ultimately ending his career with the league.


White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, alongside several former NFL players, announced the surprise decision on Tuesday to reporters at the White House.

"I take my hat off to Donald Trump for what he did," said former NFL player Jerry Rice.

The move marks Trump's nineteenth pardon since taking office in 2017, and DeBartolo isn't the president's first high-profile pardon.

Conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D'Souza received clemency in May 2018, and Trump pardoned Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, in April 2018. The president also commuted the sentence of a grandmother serving life without parole for a nonviolent drug crime at the behest of Kim Kardashian West.

The president has touted his pardon power in the past, telling reporters he is "looking at literally thousands of names of people."