Complex reports that ousted Subway spokesman Jared Fogle has received a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to child pornography and other sex crime charges. Fogle’s lawyers were hoping for a mere five-year imprisonment for their client, because the psychiatrist they called to testify on his behalf suggested that Fogle suffers from a case of “mild pedophilia,” and obviously decades-long sentences should only be handed down in more “severe” cases of sexual assault. And after all, he was “profoundly sorry for what he has done.”
But that wasn’t the only excuse that the expert, Dr. John Bradford, made for Fogle. During the sentencing hearing, Bradford claimed that Fogle’s crimes were a result of his Subway diet. No doubt drawing inspiration from the so-called “Twinkie defense,” Bradford claims that Fogle’s weight loss, prompted by the Subway diet that was once his claim to fame, caused him to become “hypersexual.” That’s according to The Indianapolis Star, which also noted that Bradford went so far as to say that Fogle could suffer from “brain disorders that can be associated with sexual drive.”
Bradford was also cross-examined about his “mild pedophilia” diagnosis in regards to Fogle’s crimes, and it turns out he’s the only person in his field willing to use such a term. The prosecution initially sought a 12-1/2 year sentence, but decided the term wouldn’t “sufficiently account for the defendant’s criminal conduct.” Fogle also has to pay $1.4 million in restitution to his victims.