Jared Fogle, 38, who became a multimillionaire (15M) from being a spokesman for Subway, claiming he’d lost a ton of weight by eating just Subway sandwiches, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt to 15.6 years in prison for sex with minors and possession of child pornography.
Bill Chappell reports for NPR, Nov. 19, 2015, that the case involved Fogle’s interstate travel to pay minors for sex, as well as at least 400 child pornography videos — many of which Fogle had received from Russell Taylor, the head of his kid-oriented non-profit charity, the Jared Fogle Foundation.
In April 2015, three months before Fogle’s arrest, Taylor was arrested for child exploitation, possession of child pornography and voyeurism. On May 6, Taylor attempted suicide at the Marion County Jail and was placed on life support. Taylor will be sentenced in December.
In July 2015, police raided Fogle’s home in Zionsville, Indiana, for child porn. When Fogle was charged, the U.S. attorney’s office in southern Indiana noted:
“His [Fogle’s] child pornography crime began when he learned that alleged co-conspirator Russell Taylor was sexually exploiting a 14 year old girl in March 2011. At that time, Mr. Fogle did nothing to stop the abuse or report it to authorities, but chose instead to receive and repeatedly view the child pornography involving the girl and those other minors produced by his alleged co-conspirator in the years that followed. Mr. Fogle admitted in court pleadings filed today that his actions caused the sexual victimization of a total of 12 minors in Indiana before his co-conspirator’s arrest in April 2015. He preyed on minor victims who did not have the ability to protect themselves.”
Soon after the raid of Fogle’s home, Subway announced it had severed all ties with him.
Subway had known about Fogle’s pedophilia as early as 2008.
In an interview with Business Insider, a Subway franchisee named Cindy Mills said Fogle told her he “had sex with” child prostitutes between the ages of 9 and 16 years old in Thailand and the United States. Mills said she had told Subway’s corporate office in 2008 but the company ignored her complaints. (Source: The Superficial)
Today, Fogle was sentenced to 188 months on each count, to be served concurrently. That amounts to just over 15.6 years. Fogle must serve a minimum of 13 years before he’s eligible for parole. After his eventual release from prison, he will be supervised for the rest of his life.
Prosecutors had sought a punishment of 12 years in prison, while Fogle’s lawyers asked for a sentence of 5 years. Fogle is also reportedly paying about $1.4 million in total restitution to 14 victims, some of whom live in his home state of Indiana.
Judge Pratt said Fogle was “obsessed” with pornography and having sex with minors. Responding to Fogle’s statement that his actions have devastated his wife, who reportedly is seeking a divorce, Judge Pratt interrupted him to say, “You gave your wife almost $7 million though. She’ll be OK.”
In a sequence that WISH-TV reporter Nick Natario describes as “disturbing and very graphic,” prosecutors in their portion of today’s hearing read aloud text conversations between Fogle and a prostitute who was also a minor, in which emojis and text shorthand such as “LOL” appear in discussions of having sex with minors.
At today’s hearing, Fogle’s defense presented two medical experts, including Canadian forensic psychiatrist Dr. John Bradford, who effectively blamed Fogle’s Subway weight-loss for his pedophilia. Bradford testified by phone that when Fogle “lost weight it seemed that in a short period of time he developed compulsive sexuality.”
Forensic psychiatrist John Bradford
Fogle’s lawyer insisted that while his client had had sex with minors, his victims were adolescents and not children. But as Jordan Fischer of local RTV6 Indianapolis reports, some of the child pornography victims in the case were as young as 6.
Judge Tanya Waltan Pratt
Judge Pratt is widely considered the toughest judge in the Southern District in terms of prison sentences. While I applaud Pratt for her sentencing of Fogle, Gateway Pundit calls her a “far left” judge because in 2011, she put a stop to the enforcement of an Indiana law banning federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Because of her action, Indiana taxpayers are forced to pay for abortions to this day.
~Eowyn
