Jared Fogle emerged from obscurity to become the unlikely face of one of America’s biggest restaurant chains, earning a small fortune by touting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle that included Subway sandwiches. He gained fame for significant weight loss, attributed to eating Subway sandwiches, and was a spokesperson for the company’s advertising campaigns from 2000 to 2015.
But his wholesome public image was only that, and on Thursday he was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for trading in child pornography and having sex with underage prostitutes.
Fogle, 38, sought leniency, apologizing to his victims and telling the court in a tearful statement that he was raised with good values by a good family, but succumbed to self-centred “deception and lies.” He said he wished he had realized long ago that he had a problem.
“I had become dependent on alcohol, pornography and prostitutes,” he told the judge. “I want to redeem my life. I want to become a good, decent person. I want to rebuild my life.”
Judge Tanya Walton Pratt wasn’t swayed, though, and gave him a harsher sentence than the 12 1/2 years that prosecutors had sought. She also ordered him to submit to a lifetime of post-prison supervision and fined him $175,000.
“What a gift, to have such a professional windfall fall in your lap,” Pratt said, referring to the lucrative deal Subway gave Fogle after he lost more than 200 pounds in college, partly by eating its sandwiches. But she said Fogle blew the chance he’d been given by living a double life and pointed out that the crimes he committed weren’t victimless.