At one time, Jared Fogle was known as an inspirational figure. He lost 245 pounds during college by sticking to a strict diet of Subway sandwiches and exercising. In 1999, his freshman-year roommate wrote about him for the Indiana Daily Student, and it was not long before the story took on a life of its own. Subway quickly made Fogle its spokesperson, and he gained international recognition.
Behind all this, Fogle was hiding a dark secret of pedophilia. A new Investigation Discovery docuseries, Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster, explores how one brave journalist, Rochelle Herman, helped take him down. The series includes horrifying audio recordings of calls where Fogle brags about having sex with minors.
Fogle was arrested in July 2015. He pleaded guilty to charges of possession or distribution of child pornography and traveling across state lines to have commercial sex with a minor and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is currently serving his time in Colorado.
It was not an easy road to get Fogle behind bars. Rochelle Herman worked for years to make this happen, even at the expense of her own mental health and relationship with her children. She became suspicious of Fogle when he admitted to her before a television interview she was conducting that he found junior high school girls “hot.” This did not sit right with her.
Herman was between a rock and a hard place. She knew she did not have enough evidence to go to the police, but she also could not let this go. She decided to maintain a friendship with Fogle in the hopes he would get comfortable with her and admit his crimes. She began recording their phone calls.
"I gave the appearance I was somebody he could confide in," Herman said. She claims Fogle flirted with her and invited her back to his hotel room. He asked her to put her hair in pigtails, and she decided it was time to leave.
She kept talking to him on the phone. She asked what it was about younger people that turned him on.
"They just have such nice, pure bodies, you know,” Fogle replied.
She asked how young he wanted his partners to be. “I don't know, middle school or whatever,” Fogle responded.
She pressed further asking if 9 or 10 was a good age. "Yeah, that'd be hot. That'd be really hot,” he answered. "I think that girl from the broken home could be a possibility, you know.”
At this point Herman took the recordings to the FBI. Authorities could not arrest him at that time because they could not locate any of his victims.
Fogle recounted to Herman why he loved visiting Thailand so much. “I would love you to go with me. We can get whatever age we want. It's just crazy, it's just easy over there," he said. "Different ages. I mean you just sort of choose who you want and there's a price for it and off you go."
The FBI and Herman tried to set Fogle up by inviting him to attend her son’s birthday party. Things took a turn when Fogle began talking about Herman’s children.
"Will you do anything I tell you to do? Will you let me see your kids naked?" Fogle asked. "What if we put a camera in your kids' room? Would they be OK with that? Would you rather have it in your son or your daughter's room? Which one do you think would be better? Tell me."
The party never took place.
Herman’s efforts and the initial FBI investigation would not result in his arrest. A break in the case came about because of an investigation into Jared’s business partner, Russell Taylor. Herman does not regret working with the FBI but admits she paid a heavy price for her efforts.
"The toll that working undercover for the FBI had on my health was astronomical. The PTSD that I have experienced because of this has been debilitating. I truly believe that when someone undergoes such a stressful situation for so many years, it makes you susceptible to other things," she said. She believes her reflex sympathetic dystrophy diagnosis is largely in part due to her work trying to take down Fogle.
Herman’s relationship with her children suffered because of her involvement in this case. She said it "tore my relationship with my children apart." Her son, who now lives in Taiwan, agrees.
