I am, without a doubt, speechless.
Jared Fogle, the former Subway pitchman, is expected to admit that he paid for sex with two minors and participated in a scheme that secretly recorded 12 other children engaging in sexual acts.
As part of a deal cut with prosecutors, Fogle is expected to plead guilty to two federal counts stemming from the actions: the first that he distributed and received child pornography, and the second that he traveled across state lines and then paid for sex with two children.
The details of his alleged crimes are contained in documents filed on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. According to the details of the plea deal, prosecutors will ask for a sentence of no more than about 12 years. Lawyers for Fogle have agreed to ask for no less than five years. The judge who handles the case does not have to abide by that agreement and statutorily, the judge can sentence Fogle to up to 50 years in prison.
The documents charge that Russell Taylor, 43, who ran Fogle’s charitable foundation, recorded child porn and then shared it with Fogle.
Fogle, the documents charge, “knew that the minors depicted in these images or videos were under the age of 18 years, including minors as young as approximately 13-14 years.”
What’s more, the documents charge, Fogle knew some of the children by name and in some conversations with Taylor, Fogle “made comments approving of this activity.”
In November 2012, the documents charge, Fogle paid for sex with a 17-year-old at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. In January 2013, according to the documents, Fogle paid for sex with another 17-year-old at the Ritz Carlton in New York City. [source]
When you look at this from the context of what Russell Taylor, former director of Fogle’s child-centered Jared Foundation, was originally arrested for and how he was caught, this all becomes far more disgusting.
What investigators discovered on #JaredFogle: 159,634 texts 47,623 images 27,140 emails 3,394 videos 14 victims #wthr pic.twitter.com/vPpFQiXdvv
— Bob Segall (@BobSegallWTHR) August 19, 2015
These were people, enabled by money, to do whatever the hell they felt like, whenever they felt like it.
According to court documents, the charges against Fogle are related to his relationship with Russell C. Taylor, the executive director of the Jared Foundation, who was arrested more than two months ago on federal child pornography charges.
According to the plea deal and indictment:
• Between 2011 and April 2015, Fogle received from Taylor multiple pornographic images of minors engaging in sexually explicit contact.
• Fogle had conversations with Taylor about the child porn, but instead of alerting authorities, he “chose to benefit from such production by obtaining access to a significant amount of such material.”
• The images and videos were recorded by Taylor at his home through the use of hidden cameras.• Between 2010 and February 2013, Fogle traveled from Indiana to New York to pay to have sex with minors.• One victim told investigators she had sex with Fogle twice when she was 17 in exchange for money, once at the Plaza Hotel and once at the Ritz Carlton, both in New York City.
• The same minor also said that Fogle had sex with her three other times before 2012, when she was 16.
• Prosecutors say that text messages, travel records, hotel records and a search of Fogle’s home provided evidence of these arrangements.
• The same minor said Fogle had sex with another 16-year-old girl on another occasion.
• Prosecutors say they have talked to witnesses who can testify about conversations Fogle had with them offering a “finder’s fee” for seeking minors for him. [source]
It’s also worth noting that 1) paying for sex period is illegal, and 2) 17 year olds, in modern times, aren’t just willy nilly meeting up with businessmen from other states and arranging these encounters on their own, no matter how “fast” or “grown” we like to make them out to be. They’re often snatched up by pimps, often caught up in sex trafficking, often manipulated beyond their recognition. He’s actively and consistently contributed to this horrific system that sees young girls in NYC – and, let’s face it, lots of young girls who migrate here, sent by their families in the hands of people they thought they could trust – snatched up and abused regularly. Luckily, they will receive restitution:
As part of Fogle’s plea deal announced Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Indiana, the disgraced Subway pitchman will pay a total of $1.4 million in restitution to the 14 victims identified by prosecutors. Fogle faces up to 12 years in prison. The restitution from the plea deal is the largest cash amount ever ordered for a child pornography or sex trafficking case in the history of the Southern District of Indiana, according to Tim Horty, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Indianapolis.Â
“One hundred thousand dollars per person is enough to get [the victims] into some counseling service and allow them the opportunity to — at least in the prostitution situation — get themselves out of that situation,” Horty told The Huffington Post Wednesday.
Eight of Fogle’s victims are still minors; the remaining four are “now adults in desperate straits,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven DeBrota told reporters Wednesday.
Though Horty was unable to go into specifics for privacy reasons, he told HuffPost of the victims’ circumstances, “You can imagine — life situation in general: Parents who were not particularly supportive, no financial means to even carry on with some of life’s basic necessities.”
Horty also noted that “a couple of families had multiple victims.” [source]
My heart… it aches for them. Some families had “multiple victims?” This man is a legit monster. This is a name we all know – a name many people recognized for inspiration. The man went from operating a p-rn-graphy business in his dorm room to being worth $15 million over the course of 15 years, and basically used that money to expand his early “business” into something far more insidious. I don’t think Subway had any culpability in this, nor do I think it’s fair to implicate them in this, which I’ve seen many people do. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that even the kindest, most gracious-appearing people have skeletons in their closet, and they’re fooling us all every day. If Jared could fool us all, he for damn sure could fool Subway’s executives. *****
We no longer have a relationship with Jared and have no further comment.
— SUBWAY® (@SUBWAY) August 18, 2015
Lastly…
Under the plea deal, the government agrees to recommend less than 13 years in prison for Fogle. Also, Fogle’s lawyers agree to ask the judge for no less than a 5-year prison term. [source]
There are men in prison still for the ounce of crack they had on them in the late 90s. There are drug addicts – not dealers – who will have served more than 13 years. They will have served more time than this monster who engaged in the repetitive and constant perpetuation of abuse against children. Children. In a “family-values-centered” country that values the lives of children sooooo much.
Imagine that.
***Wait a minute. Hold the damn phone. From BusinessInsider:
The woman’s lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous, said the FBI recently subpoenaed his law office for the text-message conversations, which Business Insider has viewed.
In the messages, Fogle repeatedly asks the woman — a Subway franchisee at the time — to advertise herself on Craigslist for sex with other men.
He asks her if he can watch the sexual acts and tells her she can make about $500 per act.
The messages in the affidavit, which the attorney says were recorded from the woman’s phone by a court reporter in 2008 and witnessed and verified by a notary-public official, span from January 2008 to June 2008. Business Insider independently verified the authenticity of the affidavit. We also verified that a phone number in the document was registered to a Jared Fogle.
The woman was apparently in a sexual relationship with Fogle at the time. She became uncomfortable with the relationship as Fogle pushed her to post listings on Craigslist and detailed other trysts, according to her lawyer.
Wendy Osborne, spokeswoman for FBI’s Southern Indiana branch, would not confirm or deny that the FBI has subpoenaed the messages.
[…]
According to the affidavit obtained by Business Insider, Fogle asked the former Subway franchisee in May 2008 to set up a meeting for him with her cousin. The cousin was underage at the time, according to the woman’s lawyer.
“When can we find a time for me to talk to your cousin?” Fogle asks in a message dated May 1, 2008.
“Any more news with your cousin?” he asks the following day. “Tell me what u think about when u think of the three of us all together???”
Earlier, in April, according to the affidavit, Fogle asked the woman, “How young would you like?… Would you want to have an adventure like that?”
On June 19, the lawyer says that Fogle again asked the woman to advertise herself on Craigslist. She responds: “Is this the same website you found that 16 year old girl you that you f*****? …I still can’t believe you only paid $100 for her.”
Fogle responds: “It was amazing!!!!”
She asks: “What part of her ad made you think she was selling sex?”
He says: “U will have to read them to see.”
The age of consent in Indiana, where Fogle resides, is 16 years old.
Fogle’s attorney, Ron Elberger, who has been quick to respond to questions in the past, has not responded to calls and emails from Business Insider about the text messages.
The woman, who initially met Fogle at a Subway function, grew uncomfortable with the conversations over time and hired a lawyer — the same lawyer that Business Insider has interviewed — to determine whether the communication violated her franchiser-franchisee contract with Subway.
That’s when the messages were extracted from her phone.
The woman reported the communications to Subway, her lawyer says. Subway determined that no violations occurred, however, due to the fact that Fogle was not an employee of Subway — even though he was hired to do marketing for the brand.
The woman also contacted Subway’s corporate office regarding the issue, and she requested that Subway allow her to remove all marketing related to Fogle from her store, according to the lawyer.
She met with two levels of management, shared the messages with them, “and specifically requested not to have his imagery and merchandising related to him in her stores,” the lawyer said. “She also specifically warned them that he should not be interacting with young people.”
Subway continued to use Fogle in national advertising campaigns until the FBI raid on his home earlier this month.
When reached for comment, Subway said, “We have no record of this allegation.” [source – thanks Amanda for sharing the link!]
Yeah…I’ll bet.
