Wednesday was not a good day for Jared Fogle, the former Subway sandwich chain pitchman.
Fourteen young victims were involved, and Fogel agreed in the plea to spend years in prison.
Then his wife, Katie, announced she was getting a divorce.
“Obviously, I am extremely shocked and disappointed by the recent developments involving Jared,” she said in a statement. “I am in the process of seeking a dissolution of the marriage. My focus is exclusively on the well-being of my [two] children.”
Fogle became a Subway spokesman after losing a reported 245 pounds in part by eating regularly at the sandwich chain. He made his first Subway commercial in 2000, and appeared in a new one last year, according to Subway.
Federal Judge Mark Dinsmore will review the plea deal Fogle’s attorneys reached with prosecutors and decide whether to accept it. In the meantime, the court entered a technical plea of not guilty on Fogle’s behalf.
Fogle was placed on home detention and must wear an electronic monitoring device. No date has been set for his next appearance.
Under the deal, Fogle would serve between five and 12 years in prison, pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 minor victims, register as a sex offender and meet other conditions.
Subway fired Fogle on Tuesday when reports of the plea agreement emerged. Fogle’s lawyers said they would make a statement outside the courthouse after he entered his plea.
Immediately after the hearing Fogle’s wife, Katie, said in a statement that she would seek an end to the marriage.
“Obviously, I am extremely shocked and disappointed by the recent developments involving Jared. I am in the process of seeking a dissolution of the marriage,” she said in the statement released by her lawyer.
Fogle’s attorney Jeremy Margolis told reporters in a statement on the courthouse steps: “He expects to go to prison, he will do his time… 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.”
Authorities searched Fogle’s home in the Zionsville suburb northwest of Indianapolis in July, two months after the executive director of his foundation, set up to combat childhood obesity, was arrested on federal child pornography charges.
According to the indictment, the head of the Jared Foundation, Russell Taylor, secretly taped 12 minors while they were changing clothes, showering and bathing at his home, including two who were as young as 13 or 14 years old. He shared the images with Fogle, who knew they showed minors, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Fogle also received commercial child pornography from Taylor, viewed it and failed to report it. He stored explicit images of children as young as six, prosecutors said.
Fogle traveled to New York City at least twice between 2010 and 2013 seeking sex with minors, and paid for sex acts twice with a girl he knew to be 17 years old. He told the girl he would “make it worth her while” if she could find him another minor to have sex with, “the younger the girl, the better,” according to the indictment.
Prosecutors said he repeatedly asked prostitutes and others to find him 14- and 15-year-olds for sex.
Police and prosecutors said in a news conference on Wednesday that the investigation of Taylor and Fogle started after a tip from a private citizen.
— Reuters contributed to this report