Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle pleaded guilty to child pornography and sex charges, and was sentenced Thursday to 15 years and eight months in prison.
The sentence, according to the Indianapolis Star, was far more than the 12.5 years that prosecutors had requested.
“Not a day will go by when I don’t think about what I did,” Fogle said in a statement to the court, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Fogle had agreed to a plea deal in August in which he would plead guilty to charges of possession of child pornography and for traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor.
His sentencing brings to a likely close to perhaps the darkest chapter in the history of Subway, which was forced to break ties with the spokesman who had helped give the chain one of the brightest health halos in the restaurant business.
Fogle rocketed to stardom in 2000, when Milford, Conn.-based Subway plucked Fogle out of obscurity in Indiana after he lost 245 pounds eating the chain’s sandwiches. He would soon become a highly recognizable face on Subway television ads and in pictures inside Subway restaurants.
His fall this year was just as swift, following a July morning when federal and local law enforcement agents raided Fogle’s home in what reports indicated was a child pornography investigation.
Fogle ultimately agreed to plead guilty to the child pornography and sex crime charges, and also agreed to pay the 14 victims of his crimes $1.4 million.
Subway quickly suspended its relationship with Fogle and then broke all ties, as franchisees removed his likeness from their restaurants.
It was an unexpected end to a mutual relationship that lasted well over a decade, leaving the chain reeling at a time when its unit volumes had been weakening. Subway’s estimated unit volumes had fallen in each of the previous two years, according to NRN Top 100 data.
Subway has been working to get back into its customers’ good graces, offering free subs in a “buy one, give one” offer on National Sandwich Day earlier this month. The company also committed to eliminate the use of human antibiotics in its sandwich meat.
Still, the company has struggled to dodge the Fogle news on social media. And the Reputation Institute found that the investigation and the plea deal had a “significant” impact on the chain’s reputation.
Contact Jonathan Maze at [email protected]
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