“Jared Fogle guilty” began trending across social media this morning, following the verdict in the child pornography trial of the former Subway spokesman. The verdict was the culmination of a five-month investigation into Fogle’s use of his own charity group, The Jared Foundation, to procure both child pornography and underage girls with whom he had sex.
Back in August, Fogle acknowledged his guilt and claimed that a medical condition was the reason for his crimes. Among the more horrifying details to surface during the criminal investigation was Fogle admitting, in 2008, to sex with a nine-year-old girl.
Fogle’s guilty plea comes with several conditions: he must avoid all pornography; get specific sexual disorder treatment; and register as a sex offender. In addition, Fogle is required to pay $1.4 million in restitution to a total of fourteen victims, all of them believed to be 16 or younger.
Federal prosecutors recommended that Fogle be sentenced to twelve-and-a-half years in prison, and that he be placed under lifetime supervision once he’s released. The federal recommendations also allowed for the possibility of further sentencing later in Fogle’s life, should new evidence of child pornography crimes emerge.
According to the Indianapolis Star, forensic psychiatrist John Bradford diagnosed Fogle with “mild pedophilia.” Bradford also testified that Fogle had “mild or infrequent fantasies about pre-pubertal children,” and said that Fogle became hyper-sexual following the weight loss that made him famous.
Fogle is expected to be sentenced later today.
UPDATE: Jared Fogle was sentenced to fifteen years and eight months in federal prison for his crimes. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said that the federal prosecutors’ recommended sentence of 135 to 168 months “does not sufficiently account for the defendant’s criminal conduct.”
In addition, as the Star notes, federal prisoners are required to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. In Fogle’s case, that works out to 160 months of his 188 month sentence, or 13.3 years.
Judge Pratt added, “The level of perversion and lawlessness exhibited by Mr. Fogle is extreme.”
(Photo credits: Jared Fogle guilty via FayesVision / WENN.com)
