Jared Fogle sentenced to nearly 16 years goes from pitchman to 'pariah'

As Jared Fogle stood to learn his fate, Judge Tanya Walton Pratt recounted the story of a once morbidly obese college student who became a wealthy spokesman for sandwiches and healthy living.

"What a gift,” Pratt said, “to have such a professional windfall fall in your lap."

Now it’s gone, as is so much else — his marriage, his career, his reputation.

And his freedom.

A U.S. marshal handcuffed Fogle behind his back and led him out of the federal courtroom after a hearing Thursday. During the hearing, the one-time face of Subway sandwiches pleaded guilty to crimes that were hard to reconcile with his affable, everyman persona: possession or distribution of child pornography and traveling across state lines to have commercial sex with a minor.

Pratt went beyond the prosecution’s sentence recommendation of 12½ years. She also went beyond the upper limit of the federal sentencing guidelines of 14 years. Instead, she put Fogle in prison for 15 years, eight months.

“The level of perversion and lawlessness exhibited by Mr. Fogle is extreme,” she said.

At various moments during the four-hour, 42-minute hearing, Pratt seemed to articulate what much of the public was thinking about his crimes — that he was man who seemingly had it all and yet threw it all away in almost unfathomable fashion.

She said she believed Fogle’s remorse is sincere and that he will follow through on psychological care. But, in what was perhaps the most telling moment in the hearing, Pratt cut him off in the middle of his statement.

"Members of my family are also victims of my acts," Fogle said, noting that his wife will be a single mother after their divorce.

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And that's when Pratt interjected: "You gave your wife $7 million, so she'll be OK."

Fogle responded by forging ahead with reading what appeared to be a written statement.

But if Pratt's words were harsh, Fogle, 38, must also have found the testimony on his own behalf nothing short of humiliating. The two witnesses for the defense — a psychiatrist and psychologist — recounted their examinations of him in sometimes cringe-inducing detail. Details such as his fantasies about prepubertal children.

But there was much more. Testimony revealed Fogle had spent at least $12,000 per year on prostitutes.

It revealed that he knew one of his victims well enough to identify her just from a nude picture of her torso.

Fogle sat with his lawyers, dressed in a dark suit and red tie, listening as prosecutor Steven DeBrota and a prosecution witness did role playing as if they were reading lines from a play. The witness, a detective, read texts Fogle had sent. DeBrota read responses from various women and girls.

“Did you find some young girls or boys?” Fogle asked in a chat with an 18-year-old female acting as a pimp. He said he would pay her at least $400 if she could find him someone 16 or younger.

“Do you have access to any young girls?” Fogle asked in a text conversation with another female teenager, adding that that’s what he craved.

Another detail: The finder’s fee went up if the minor could prove her age or was attractive.

Fogle’s own lawyer added to the humiliation while trying to make the point that his celebrity client had suffered plenty already.

“No one wants to be Jared Fogle,” the defense attorney said. “He’s a laughing

Hearing those words, Fogle grabbed a tissue and wiped tears.

Fogle's secret life began to unravel April 29, when police arrested Russell C. Taylor, former head of The Jared Foundation, on preliminary child pornography charges.

But Fogle's interest in sex with minors went back to at least 2007, a year before Taylor became head of the foundation. Fogle frequented online sites with ads for escorts or erotic services. He often fed his desire during business trips, trying to arrange his illicit encounters around his schedule promoting Subway and his foundation.

After Taylor took over The Jared Foundation, prosecutors said, Fogle's illegal activities accelerated. That included viewing images recorded by Taylor, who had multiple hidden cameras in his home. He recorded children, ages 9 to 16, changing clothes, showering and bathing. One of the videos depicted more sexually explicit conduct.

Pratt seemed unpersuaded by two key arguments from the defense, intended to try in some way to explain Fogle’s behavior, or at least diminish his depravity.

The first argument: that Fogle has impulse control issues, having traded a food addiction — he once weighed 420 pounds before famously slimming down, in part, by eating Subway sandwiches — for a sex addiction. The second argument came from the defense psychiatrist, who said Fogle was merely a “mild” or “weak” pedophile — an argument DeBrota undercut with the next defense witness, a psychologist, who said that’s not a commonly accepted diagnosis.

The defense attorney, while repeatedly acknowledging that their client was “pathetic,” tried to introduce mitigating factors such as Fogle having had sex with 16- and 17-year-olds, not younger girls.

“It’s not a fun job fashioning these distinctions,” said his lawyer, Andrew DeVooght.

Fogle also struggled to explain his actions. He made his tearful statement late in the hearing. Before speaking, he took two deep audible breaths.

“Where do I even try to begin, your honor?”  he said.

He will have ample time to contemplate that question further.

The defense’s request for a five-year prison sentence — “enough for him to know he'll never do this again,” DeVooght said — didn’t seem to have a chance.

Pratt announced her 15-year, 8-month sentence and then read from a statement by a victim’s mother. She said her daughter had contemplated suicide and uses medication for sleep, depression and anxiety. She is 16.

U.S. marshals took Fogle to the Henderson County Detention Center in Kentucky following his sentencing, said Colonel Amy Brady, the center's chief deputy of administration. The judge accepted the defense’s request that she recommend that Fogle be sent to prison in Littleton, Colo., because it has a program for sex offenders. The Bureau of Prisons, though, will make the final decision.

He will have to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence. When he is released, he will be no younger than 51 years old. His children will be teenagers.

“I will someday have to explain to them what I did,” Fogle told the court.

The judge noted that Fogle had a privileged childhood. His father is a family medicine doctor. About 12 family members and friends sat in the audience at the hearing. Fogle blew them a kiss and waved goodbye.

He then removed his suit jacket and was handcuffed behind his back by a U.S. marshal who led him out of the courtroom.

His family members hugged and cried.

Star reporter Jill Disis contributed to this story.

Call Star reporter Mark Alesia at (317) 444-6311. Follow him on Twitter: @markalesia.

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