Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle was sentenced Thursday to 15 years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to child pornography and sex crime charges.
Fogle, 38, pleaded guilty to one count each of distribution and possession of child pornography and traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor. Fogle had struck a plea deal with prosecutors in August after federal and state agents raided his home in Zionsville, Indiana, in July.
As part of his plea deal, prosecutors had agreed not to recommend more than 12 and a half years in prison, and Fogle’s defense attorneys agreed not to ask for less than 5 years. However, according to the Indianapolis Star, U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said prosecutors’ recommendations did “not sufficiently account for the defendant’s criminal conduct.”
“The level of perversion and lawlessness exhibited by Mr. Fogle is extreme,” the judge said in handing down the sentence.
Earlier, Fogle had broken down while giving his own statement: “I so regret that I let so many of you down,” he said, adding: “Not a day will go by when I don’t think about what I did to [the victims].”
Before sentencing, Fogle’s defense team had called on University of Ottawa forensic psychiatrist John Bradford, who diagnosed Fogle with “mild pedophilia” and said the behavior may have been linked to his career as a Subway’s celebrity representative.
“Once he lost weight, it seemed as though in a short time he had hyper-sexuality,” Bradford testified. “There are brain disorders that can be associated with sexual drive.”
Last month, portions of secretly recorded conversations between Fogle and former reporter Rochelle Herman-Walrond were aired on the Dr. Phil television program. In the tapes, Fogle could allegedly be heard discussing sexual encounters he had with underaged children, reportedly telling Herman-Walrond that “early middle-school”-aged children were best to engage in sex acts with.
Subway cut ties with its longtime spokesman in July, almost immediately after state and federal agents conducted a morning raid on his home.
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