Fogel, 37, asked a federal judge Wednesday to accept guilty pleas to child pornography and sex charges in exchange for a prison sentence of between five and 12 years, payment of $1.4 million in restitution to 14 victims and registration as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Judge Mark Dinsmore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana will decide whether to accept the plea agreement Fogel reached with prosecutors this week.
In the meantime, Dinsmore entered not guilty pleas on Fogle’s behalf, according to the Reuters news service.
Fogle was placed on home detention and ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device.
Prosecutors had charged Fogle, an Indianapolis native who had been the face of the Subway sandwich chain since 2000, with possession of child pornography, and with traveling to New York City at least twice between 2010 and 2013 to have sex with girls under the age of 17 and solicit additional underage sexual partners.
Fogle became Subway’s spokesman after the company embraced his story of losing 245 pounds by eating its sandwiches, and was featured in hundreds of commercials for the chain.
Fogle even set up a foundation to combat child obesity, the Jared Foundation, that was headed by his friend, Rusell Taylor.
But Subway fired Fogle on Tuesday after reports of the plea agreement emerged, Reuters said.
Earlier, attention had focused on Taylor after police, acting on a tip, found pornographic images on Taylor’s home computer and photographs of minors changing clothes and showering at the residence.
But Taylor shared the photos with Fogle, who knew they were of young children, Reuters said.
Authorities later searched Fogle’s home, which he shares with his wife, Katie, and found other pornographic images, some involving children as young as 6.
Katie Fogle said after court that she would seek to end her marriage to Fogle, Reuters said.
“I am extremely shocked and disappointed by the recent developments involving Jared,” Katie Fogle said in a statement released by her lawyer.
“I am in the process of seeking a dissolution of the marriage,” she said.
Jared Fogle’s attorney, Jeremy Margolis, told reporters outside the courthouse that his client had accepted his fate and wished to make amends.
“He will continue to make amends to people whose lives he has affected, and at some point hopes to become again a productive member of society,” Margolis said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven DeBrota said at a news conference that Jared Fogle continued to seek paid sex with minors even after Taylor’s arrest, but was not successful, Reuters said.
