End To Subway Pitchman's Endless 15 Minutes Of Fame
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Jared Fogle is…was…the guy we spent time secretly envying, making all of that money and enjoying all of that notoriety simply for having been someone who lost lots of weight on a diet made up largely of Subway sandwiches. We do not, however, envy him any longer - the now-former pitchman, whose entire claim to fame was that he lost a bunch of weight on a diet composed largely of Subway sandwiches, has agreed to plead guilty to charges related in some form or fashion to child pornography and having sex with minors. He’s looking at between five and 12.5 years in prison, and will have to pay 14 underage victims a total of $1.4 million.
Fogle’s house was raided by authorities in July, a few months after the director of his Jared Foundation, Russell Taylor, was arrested on various child porn-related charges. It has been reported that the fall of Taylor led directly to the authorities’ interest in Fogle – no surprise there.
Beyond the obvious and egregious moral and criminal failings associated with this sordid behavior, Fogle’s actions are a head-scratcher, for sure, given his lifestyle situation. Here’s a guy who seemed to have it all (in the earthly sense, that is), and did so on the basis of having lost a lot of weight one time; I’ve read from various sources that his net worth is around $15 million. I, for one, always marveled at how his 15 minutes of fame stretched into 15 years, and was still going strong at the time he was busted by authorities last month. Nevertheless, that is all gone now, and we hope and pray for the full recovery of his victims.