Former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle pleaded guilty today to child pornography and sex crime charges, telling the judge he understood that he will likely go to prison.
Fogle agreed in August to plead guilty to one count each of travelling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and distribution and receipt of child pornography. The charges followed a July raid on his suburban Indianapolis home and the resulting criminal case destroyed his career with the sandwich restaurant chain.
Before entering his guilty plea during today's hearing, US District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt asked Fogle whether he understood the punishment he could face and he answered, "Yes, your honor. I do."
Fogle was expected to make a statement after a brief break in the proceedings, after which the sentencing portion would begin.
Fogle has admitted paying for sex with girls as young as 16 and receiving child pornography produced by Russell Taylor, the former executive director of The Jared Foundation, a nonprofit Fogle started to raise awareness and money to fight childhood obesity.
Authorities said Taylor secretly filmed 12 minors as they were nude, changing clothes, or engaged in other activities using hidden cameras in his Indianapolis-area residences to produce child pornography. Taylor has agreed to plead guilty to child exploitation and child pornography charges.
Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed last week that Fogle received photos or videos from Taylor of eight of those 12 youths, and that some of those images were of girls as young as 12.
Fogle could have stopped Taylor from victimizing some of minors, prosecutors have said, but he instead encouraged Taylor to produce additional child pornography.
In the government's filing, prosecutors said "Fogle has sacrificed absolutely everything he had built including his family to engage in sexually explicit conduct with two minors. He emboldened a molester and a producer of child pornography."
Court documents detailing the charges against the 38-year-old father of two say that Fogle had sex at New York City hotels with two girls under age 18, one of whom was 16 at the time and paid them for that sex.
Fogle agreed to pay a total of USD 1.4 million to his 14 victims, with each getting USD 100,000. Before Fogle entered his guilty pleas today, one of his attorneys told the judge that Fogle had paid 12 of the 14 victims and turned over the checks for the last two victims before the proceedings began.
