Subway has spent most of 2016 rebuilding its reputation after it emerged that its longtime pitchman, Jared Fogle, was a child pornographer and serial child molester. However, in the wake of these revelations, a number of disturbing questions remain. For instance, there are strong indications that the sandwich chain had ample warning that Fogle was not the all-American boy he claimed to be, and yet covered it up. Well, Fogle’s ex-wife had the same questions–and has filed a lawsuit in an Indiana court in hopes of seeking answers.
Katie McLaughlin married Fogle in 2010, during the height of his fame. However, within hours of Fogle formally confessing to his despicable crimes, McLaughlin divorced him. She has stayed out of the public eye for over a year, but reemerged on Monday to announce she was suing Subway’s three corporate arms–parent company Doctor’s Associates, franchiser Franchise World Headquarters, and Fogle’s formal employer, marketing arm Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust–alleging that Subway had ample evidence that Fogle was a pedophile for more than a decade prior to being unmasked in 2015, and yet did nothing.
Heavy obtained a copy of the complaint. Read it here. McLaughlin is suing on behalf of herself and her two children, claiming that Subway was notified at least three times about Fogle’s “depravities,” and yet covered them up in the name of protecting its “cash cow.”
- In 2004, a Subway senior vice president got word that Fogle had tried to come on to a young girl at an event in Las Vegas. Subway sent its senior public relations manager to speak with Fogle, but took no further action.
- In 2008, Cindy Mills, a Subway franchisee in Pensacola, alerted SFAFT CEO Jeff Moody that Fogle had told her several things about children that would make any fair-minded parent’s hair stand on end. Supposedly, Fogle liked girls young, and claimed to have had sex with girls as young as nine years old. Moody cut her off and told her that he had fielded similar complaints in the past. However, Fogle was getting serious with McLaughlin at the time, and Moody believed she would keep Fogle “grounded.” As in 2004, Subway had its public relations manager speak with Fogle–and did nothing else.
- In 2011, Rochelle Herman-Walrond sent Subway a complaint via its Website about Fogle’s behavior. The former journalist said that Fogle had expressed a disturbing interest in children, and actually asked her to help him get in touch with children. Herman-Walrond got in touch with the FBI, and made several recordings of Fogle’s debauched comments that ultimately led to the FBI raiding Fogle’s home in July 2015. After an internal investigation, Subway admitted that this complaint was mishandled.
McLaughlin says that the raid was the first time she had any hint that her husband was not the man he made himself out to be. Had Subway acted “as a responsible corporation should” and reported Fogle to the police, she would have never married him.
McLaughlin held a press conference at her lawyers’ offices in Noblesville, near Indianapolis, to announce her lawsuit. NBC got a clip.
McLaughlin fought to keep her composure as she talked about how much of a “nightmare” this has been for her. She said that it was “devastating” to find out she had allowed a child pornographer and child exploiter to share her bed, and “beyond comprehension” that Subway covered up his crimes. While she is seeking unspecified damages, she said that she filed this lawsuit primarily to get answers for her children and the families of Fogle’s victims about what Subway officials knew and when they knew it.
I know how McLaughlin feels right now, because I was in her shoes once. As many of you know, I was horrified to learn that my ex-wife had concealed her past history of abusing her own children. I only learned this when I got my hands on the divorce papers from her first marriage, and discovered she hadn’t even bothered to file a response when her husband said she’d seen her hitting her own son in the head out of anger. Apparently she had done a lot of other things that were bad enough that she could only see her children on supervised visits. Had I known this beforehand, I would have never married her–and had I found out during our marriage, I would have thrown her out first and asked questions later.
I say this because I’ve already seen comments online suggesting that McLaughlin is out to shake Subway for whatever she can. Bollocks. Poppycock. Based on what we now know, Fogle made his own wife and children an unwitting accomplice in his scheme to snow the nation into believing he was an all-American boy. And in so doing, he not only endangered his own children, but every child on his block in Zionsville, and who knows how many others with whom he interacted over the years.
As a result, McLaughlin and Fogle’s five-year marriage was completely false. And all because Subway covered up the fact that its prime spokesman was a child predator. In what world does a spouse who is the victim of such an outrageous deceit not have the right to know how it was allowed to happen? This isn’t about money. This is about how an innocent woman was rooked into marrying a monster. For that reason, if Subway has any decency, its lawyers are probably in settlement talks with McLaughlin’s lawyers right now.
I had initially been reluctant to call for a boycott of Subway, if only because it is entirely franchised. But if Subway is stupid enough to force McLaughlin to go to trial, then we are going to have to ask whether it should be allowed to exist. Hopefully Subway won’t be stupid.
(featured image: screengrab via NBC News)
