Jared Fogle Sentenced to 15 Years

[Content Note: Rape culture; child assault; fat hatred. Video may autoplay at link.]

Jared Fogle, former spokesperson for Subway, who was facing a sentence anywhere from 5 to 50 years, was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months by US District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt at the federal courthouse in Indianapolis today. Fogle had pleaded guilty to "one count of possession of child pornography and one count of traveling across state lines to have sex with [sic] a minor."

The sentence is more than the 12 1/2 years that prosecutors agreed to seek in a plea deal. Pratt said the advisory sentence range of 135 to 168 months "does not sufficiently account for the defendant's criminal conduct."

Federal prisoners must serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. The judge recommended that Fogle be sent to a prison in Littleton, Colo., because of its program for sex offenders.

During the hearing, Fogle's defense attorneys enlisted the testimony of forensic psychiatrist John Bradford of the University of Ottawa, who tried to persuade the judge to give Fogle a light sentence because he has, in Bradford's words, "weak pedophilia." Thankfully, prosecutor Steven DeBrota pushed back on that shit:

DeBrota, cross-examining Bradford, asked him about "mild" or "weak" pedophilia and whether those terms are used by other experts in his field.

Bradford said they are not used by other experts.

"So that's a term you've come up with to provide scaling to the word pedophilia?" DeBrota said.

Bradford said yes.

...DeBrota asked Bradford about Fogle viewing images of children as young as 6. Bradford said that's still consistent with his diagnosis of "weak pedophilia."

DeBrota tried to make the point that Fogle is indeed interested in young children.

Fogle had "occasional fantasies" of sex with children, Bradford said.

"Not that he doesn't have an interest in children, but he has never laid a hand on, or molested, a child," Bradford said.

And we know this because admitted rapist Jared Fogle says so, I guess.

The defense also tried to argue that Fogle, who famously lost a lot of weight by, according to him, walking to Subway every day to purchase one of their sandwiches, a tale that landed him the spokesperson gig, "traded a food addiction for a sex addiction." Fuck that. It's not that it isn't possible for someone to substitute one addiction for another, but Fogle isn't a "sex addict." He's a rapist and a pedophile. And conflating disordered eating with a total disregard for consent and the abuse of women and children is some goddamn bullshit.

Relatedly, there are lots and lots of rape jokes being made on social media and comments on news items in association with this story, so heads-up if you were considering reading about this elsewhere. Also, I shouldn't have to say this here, but just in case: Rape jokes are categorically unwelcome in this space and will be deleted and their authors banned.