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A subway restaurant in Indiana. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
UPDATE: Subway has suspended its relationship with Fogle. Hours ago, the sandwich chain started scrubbing the spokesman from its site.
Early Tuesday morning, law enforcement raided the home of Jared Fogle, the guy who famously ate himself thin and showed it off on national television in the 90s. Members of the FBI, state police, and US Postal Service were observed removing items from the Subway spokesman’s Zionsville, Indiana, residence and placing them inside a large truck, and Fogle was driven away in a black Lexus by his attorney, the Indianapolis Star reported.
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The Department of Justice has yet to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, but Fogle’s lawyer, Ron Elberger, wrote the Star, “Jared has been cooperating, and continues to cooperate, with law enforcement in their investigation of unspecified charges and looks forward to its conclusion. He has not been detained, arrested or charged with any crime or offence.”
So we don’t know exactly why cops are poking around Fogle’s house just yet, but it’s more than plausible that the flurry of law enforcement attention has something to do with the fact that Russell Taylor, former director of Fogle’s Jared Foundation, was arrested in April on eight child pornography charges. In fact, the sandwich chain released a statement Tuesday afternoon making that very connection.
“We are shocked about the news and believe it is related to a prior investigation of a former Jared Foundation employee,” Subway’s statement reads. “We are very concerned and will be monitoring the situation closely. We don’t have any more details at this point.”
According to a federal criminal complaint prepared in May, Taylor enjoyed sending illegal porn to his friends via text message. An unnamed woman who knew him through her husband told policeabout the text messages after having participated in them for some time, even after her husband died in 2013. During an October 2014 interview at her home with Indiana State Police, she said that she still had the texts saved on her phone and agreed to turn them over.
It’s unclear why the woman hesitated to alert the police – or why she’d want anyone to know about what she herself had participated in. For instance, Taylor asked if he could come over to her house and, along with another woman, fuck a horse she kept on her property. When later asked if this request was made in jest, the woman told an officer, “You could tell he was serious.” Still, she apparently continued the relationship.
Taylor also sent images that suggested he was legitimately interested in bestiality. One of the images was of a dog “licking the nude genital area of an adult female.” Eventually, the woman told police, he asked her if she wanted to see “young girls” and hinted that he’d traveled to Thailand in the past.
When police asked her if Taylor had ever sent explicit images of young girls, she told them no, and when asked if he’d talked about sex with children, the woman responded, “Not that I can remember, but he’s the type of person that seems to be very sexually involved in whatever goes.”
Eventually, the FBI put together a timeline of the woman’s exchanges with Taylor, who she said was into “messing around” with horses, among other activities. The agent determined that they talked about child porn, bestiality, and “meeting for sexual purposes,” according to the criminal complaint.
On April 29, officers raided Taylor’s home looking for videos and images of bestiality. During their forensic search, though, they came across images of child porn. These included included separate videos of three naked girls and a boy – who later told police they were unaware they were being filmed – entering and exiting a bathtub, which were later determined to likely have been shot at Taylor’s previous home. Police also found a commercially-made video of a 12-year-old from Eastern Europe, and an 8GB thumb drive with more images and erotica mixed in with documents related to an unnamed foundation.
In all, the police reviewed more than 500 videos apparently set in both Taylor’s former and current Indiana homes. His relationship to the four children depicted in the various videos – between ages 9 and 16 – has not been revealed, but they were all known to “sleep at Russell Taylor’s residence at various times,” according to the complaint. In an interview with law enforcement after being advised of his Miranda rights, Taylor conceded that he placed “clocks with concealed cameras in various rooms throughout the house,” and added, “I’ve had Nanny cams forever.” He also copped to placing a camera in his step-daughter’s room, citing his wife’s alleged concern that there was “underage sex going on,” and claimed he did not review the video footage himself.
Taylor was ultimately charged with seven counts of producing child pornography and one count of possession.
So were the cops looking for evidence that Subway Jared was involved in the same twisted shit Taylor allegedly was? We can’t say for certain yet, as there’s no mention of the sandwich chain spokesman in the original federal complaint, nor in any of the subsequent court documents related to the case pending against Taylor. However, a local CBS affiliate, citing FBI sources, reported Tuesday that the warrant on Fogle’s home was, in fact, served in connection with a child porn probe.
Now, there’s obviously a huge leap between being a porn connoisseur as a college student and hoarding kiddie porn as an adult, but there is at least some evidence to suggest that Fogle might be more interested in smut than your average dude. On Tuesday, Gawker dug up an old VH1 exclusive on the Subway guy’s origin story. Although the New York Daily News has reported that Subway is the only job Fogle’s ever known, before he amassed $15 million as the face of vaguely healthy fast food, Fogle was apparently a massively overweight guy who ran a porn library out of his college dorm.
Back in the day before feds had hard drives to raid, Fogle’s job was to rent out physical copies of videos to his friends for a buck a piece, according to VH1. In fact, if the outlet’s lone source is to be believed, the whole reason Fogle started subsisting on Subway is because it was so close to his home office.
After achieving national prominence by shedding well over 200 pounds, Fogle went on to start the Jared Foundation in 2006, an organisation focused on reducing child obesity. Taylor, who is currently being held by the US Marshals Service, served as its director before Fogle announced he was “severing all ties” amid the child porn investigation into Taylor this April.
According to the Indy Star, two days after charges were brought against him, Taylor attempted suicide and had to be placed on life support. His condition has since stabilised.
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