Jared Fogle Admits To Appalling Breakdown Of Decency With Children



For the better part of 15 years, Jared Fogle appeared to a success story. He’d lost over 200 pounds by eating mostly Subway sandwiches, and leveraged that into becoming a prominent pitchman for the sandwich chain. Earlier today, however, that image was revealed to be a mirage. Federal prosecutors in Indianapolis unsealed a plea agreement which calls for Fogle to plead guilty to two counts of exploiting 14 children over a four-year period. The court documents spell out a ghastly breakdown of basic standards of decency.

Jared Fogle at a 2007 event in Boston (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Jared Fogle at a 2007 event in Boston (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Read the two-count charge sheet here and the plea agreement here. They both make for horrifying reading–indeed, even more horrifying that was initially hinted when news broke of the plea deal yesterday. From 2011 to 2015, Russell Taylor, the executive director of Fogle’s foundation, secretly took pictures and videos of 12 minor kids as young as 13 years old. He then sent “a significant amount” of this material to Fogle via text message and a thumb drive. It appears that thumb drive was among the items seized when federal and state agents raided Fogle’s home in July.

Many of these kids had met Fogle during social functions. Taylor also sent Fogle a number of sexually explicit images of children obtained from file-trading services; some of the kids in those images were as young as six years old. According to federal prosecutors, however, Fogle had already engaged in a breakdown of decency before then.

Between 2010 and 2013, Fogle traveled to New York City on several occasions to have sex with minors. Specifically, in 2012 he traveled to New York for encounters with two girls identified as “Minor Victim 13” and “Minor Victim 14.” In 2012, after having sex with  Victim 13, he paid her a “finder’s fee” if she could hook him up with another underage girl. He was willing to settle for someone as old as 16 years old, but told Victim 13 that “the younger the girl, the better.” He also sent text messages to dozens of “escorts” seeking their help in setting up trysts with minors, and even tweaked his travel plans to facilitate these trysts. It’s not clear whether one of those trysts was the one referenced in a text message exchange with a Subway franchisee.

Fogle entered a plea of not guilty earlier today, but has agreed to change his plea to guilty at a later date. Until then, he will be on electronic monitoring. He has also agreed to accept a sentence of between five and 12.5 years in federal prison and at least five years supervised release. Had he gone to trial, he could have faced up to 50 years in prison, which would have effectively been a life sentence for the 37-year-old. He will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and is banned from any unsupervised contact with minors. He has also agreed to pay a total of $1.4 million in restitution to the victims, or about $100,000 per victim.

Within hours of the deal being announced, Fogle’s wife, Katie, filed for divorce. Under the terms of his plea deal, Fogle won’t be able to have any contact with his two children unless Katie agrees. If I were Katie’s shoes, I’d have a really hard time letting Fogle anywhere near the kids. After all, Fogle admitted to engaging in this debauched behavior for the entire duration of their marriage.

Fogle’s attorney, Jeremy Margolis, says that Fogle will undergo “significant psychiatric medical treatment and counseling.” I have to wonder–if he’d gotten counseling sooner, would this breakdown have even occurred? After all, overeating is a common coping mechanism. If that’s the case, then Fogle only addressed part of the problem–he got the weight off without getting help for whatever caused the weight in the first place. Now Fogle will have to spend the rest of his life paying for not getting help sooner. Not only that, but 14 kids, as well as Fogle’s wife and kids, will likely need several years, if not a lifetime, of healing.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.