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Surprised it hasn't been mentioned, but former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle has been exposed as a child pornographer and child exploiter. Two weeks ago, Fogle agreed to plead guilty to one count of receiving and distributing child porn and one count of traveling to have sex with minors. He admitted to obtaining several pornographic pictures and videos from the executive director of his foundation over a four-year period, and also to making several trips to New York City for paid sex with minors. Fogle is due to be sentenced on November 19. If a judge signs off on the deal, he will serve between five and 12.5 years in federal prison.
However, a former Subway franchisee says that she went to Subway with concerns about Fogle as early as 2008--but Subway took no action. Cindy Mills, a former Subway franchisee in Pensacola, says that Fogle told her on several occasions that he'd had sex with girls as young as nine years old. Earlier, she'd come forward anonymously to say that Fogle had told her via text message that he'd paid a 16-year-old $100 for sex.
When Mills complained to Subway headquarters, she discovered that Fogle technically worked for Subway's global marketing arm, the Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust. It's legally a separate company from Subway parent Doctor's Associates, but the two share the same address in Milford, Connecticut. When she spoke with SFAFT CEO Jeff Moody, Mills says that Moody told her, "Please don't tell me anymore." He implied that SFAFT was aware of problematic behavior from Fogle, but he'd found someone who could possibly settle him down. That someone is his now-estranged wife, Katie, who announced she was seeking a divorce almost as soon as her husband's plea deal was unsealed.
Mills then hired a lawyer to see if she could take Subway to court for breach of contract, only to discover that since SFAFT and Doctor's Associates were separate entities, Subway was technically not liable for any of Fogle's crimes. She was afraid to complain about it herself to police, out of fear that no one would believe her. A Subway regional manager refused to let Mills remove Jared-related advertising from her stores, and Mills ultimately got out of the business when Moody and Fogle sat next to her at a Subway convention.
Subway initially claimed it had no record of Mills' complaint. But that changed when Rochelle Herman, a former journalist from Sarasota, said she'd written to Subway in 2010 after Fogle made several alarming comments to her. Herman said that Fogle made comments about her teenaged kids so disgusting that "there's not even a word in the dictionary for how horrible it was." He also wanted her to put cameras in her kids' rooms. However, she never received any word from Subway beyond confirmation that her online comment went through.
It turned out, though, that Herman played a pivotal role in blowing this case open. In 2011, Fogle told her that he thought middle school girls were "hot." Herman immediately went to the FBI, and even went as far as recording several phone calls with Fogle and wearing a wire on a few times when they met in person. Her evidence, combined with the text message exchange with Mills, ultimately led the FBI to Fogle's door in July.
When Subway got wind that there was a second whistleblower, it launched an internal investigation into its initial response to the Fogle complaints. It's not as if it had a choice. After all, this situation is indisputably within "what did they know and when did they know it" territory.
Moody, who is now CEO of Rita's Italian Ice, says that he only learned about Fogle's crimes this summer, and is "repulsed" by them. If he or anyone else associated with Subway knew about these complaints and failed to act on them, though, heads need to roll. At a minimum, they all need to be fired, and it's not out of line at this point to wonder if this rises to the level of child endangerment.