Disgraced Subway pitchman Jared Fogle is a child predator with an insatiable appetite for underage girls that included sex at The Plaza and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Manhattan, authorities said Wednesday.
After paying a 17-year-old girl for sex at The Plaza in 2012, the married dad of two told her she’d get a bonus for finding him other young victims — saying, “the younger the girl, the better,’’ federal-court documents revealed.
Fogle, 37, admitted to regularly viewing and sharing sexually explicit images of children — some as young as 6 — including those from his own anti-obesity foundation, authorities said.
Among the day’s revelations:
- Fogle arranged his trysts around company-paid jaunts for Subway and his Jared Foundation — bedding the 17-year-old just two days after appearing at a New York City Marathon event.
- He bombarded escorts with texts begging them “to provide him with access to minors as young as 14 to 15 years,” court papers state. He would vet the escorts to make sure they weren’t undercover cops by having sex with them, prosecutors said.
- The disgraced sandwich peddler will plead guilty to one count each of traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and the distribution and receipt of child pornography.
- Federal investigators linked their probe to Fogle through photos and videos of secretly taped children he allegedly got from fellow pedophile and foundation partner Russell Taylor.
- Fogle faces five to 12¹/₂ years in prison and $1.4 million in restitution — $100,000 for each of his victims — under the proposed deal.
- His wife, Katie Fogle, announced that she is divorcing him, saying, “Obviously, I am extremely shocked and disappointed.’’ The couple wed in 2010 and have two young kids.
- Subway, which turned the once-chubby, porn-loving college bum into a multimillion-dollar commodity, further distanced itself from the axed pitchman. “Jared Fogle’s actions are inexcusable and do not represent our brand’s values,” the company said in a tweet.
Fogle briefly appeared in federal court in Indianapolis Wednesday morning and kept his head bowed and fiddled with his hands while hearing the charges against him. He said, “Yes,’’ when asked if he understood.
He was fitted with an ankle monitor and confined to his home. Fogle must appear again in court to plead guilty as part of the deal, which would register him as a sex offender and order him to undergo treatment for a “sexual disorder.’’
The judge can use the deal as a guideline at sentencing but doesn’t have to abide by it.
Investigators first launched their probe into Taylor in September 2014 when they got a tip from a woman that he was dealing in child pornography, court records show.
Taylor was arrested for kiddie porn in May, and the feds then raided Fogle’s home two months later — fearing he might be acting out on his own sick fantasies, too.
A former TV reporter who spent a lot of time with Fogle during Subway promotional events in Sarasota, Fla., told the FBI she heard him say “middle-school girls are hot” and other repulsive remarks, sources have said.
A Subway franchise owner also surfaced suggesting that she’d been having an affair with Fogle and that he told her he had “amazing’’ sex with a 16-year-old girl, the Business Insider Web site said. Before arresting Fogle, the FBI subpoenaed an affidavit containing alleged damning texts between the two from 2008 in which Fogle begged to meet her underage cousin, adding, “Tell me what u think about when u think of the three of us all together???” the Web site said.
Fogle’s perversion was apparently so strong that he couldn’t stop himself even after Taylor was busted. Fogle spent from 2007 through this past June traveling between states “for the purpose of engaging in commercial sexual activity,’’ including with minors, documents say.
Fogle is accused in court papers of paying two underage girls for sex in New York City.
While the age of consent in the state is 17, it’s a federal crime to move across state lines for paid sex. Both illegal trysts outlined in the documents involve the same 17-year-old girl he met online. One occurred on Nov. 3, 2012, at The Plaza, the other Jan. 11, 2013 at The Ritz on West Street downtown.
There are no details on the second girl with whom he had sex.
He also had 12 victims stemming from the pornography, officials said. They are a dozen kids who were secretly taped in various stages of undress by Taylor after Fogle learned of his buddy’s sick obsession, officials said.
Authorities say that if Fogle had done the right thing and turned Taylor in at the time, the kids wouldn’t have been victimized.
Fogle’s lawyer, Jeremy Margolis, said after court that his client “has a medical problem’’ and has already been seen by a “world-class” psychiatrist.
“He knows that restitution can’t undo the damage that he’s done, but he will do what he can,’’ Margolis said. “Jared Fogle expects to go to prison. He will do his time. He expects to get well. He will try to make amends to the people he affected.”
Fogle’s family said in a statement that they were “shocked and profoundly disappointed in Jared’s abhorrent criminal behavior, and we are very concerned for the well being of those affected by his conduct.”
Fogle became a Subway pitchman in 2000 after landing on the company’s radar for dropping 245 pounds eating their lesser-calorie subs. It was later revealed that he went on the sandwich diet as a porn-peddling Indiana University student because it was the most convenient eatery to his dorm room from which he rented smut.
Additional reporting by Lia Eustachewich