Tully: Jared Fogle’s delusional plea for leniency

Jared Fogle will stand before a federal judge Thursday morning and make a plea for leniency. This is a guy who has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and having sex with a minor, and who has left a trail of vile behavior in his path. So while he deserves a lot of things, leniency is not among them.

We already knew that the fast food pitchman was nothing short of evil. When you engage in the crimes he engaged in, when you prey upon children and contribute to a sick underworld that brutalizes and exploits them, then evil is what you are.

For months, we have read about this public figure’s sick private life. Now, as his most important day in court approaches, we are learning that he is not only sick and evil but also delusional. We learned that last week when his lawyers filed papers announcing that he would ask Judge Tanya Walton Pratt to let him off with a sentence that would be a travesty of justice.

Five years? You must be kidding. Not for what this man did. Not for the lines he crossed. Not considering the deep and permanent emotional scars that his actions have inflicted on so many children. Five years? Not a chance. No way.

Fogle was given all of the advantages in the world, millions of dollars and a multitude of fans and fame, in return for losing weight two decades ago and then selling sandwiches almost ever since. So given what he received in return for modest accomplishments and minimal effort, it’s understandable that he lacks any real perspective on life.

Understandable, but nonetheless laughable. No, it is not laughable, unless it’s the type of laughter that comes from disgust.

According to his legal filing, Fogle thinks five years is a “sufficient” penalty for all that he has done. A man who consumed child porn and asked prostitutes to help him find young girls — yeah, that’s the guy now offering his thoughts on what is right and wrong.

Fogle’s legal brief takes shots at politicians who pander to the public by seeking tough sentences for criminals like him. But if political pandering is what leads to tougher sentences for criminals like him, then in this case I say pander away. The brief seeks to win him points because he didn’t commit even worse crimes, noting that “the vast majority” of the child porn he received “did not include images or videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”

Your defense is that it could have been worse? Most of the child porn you possessed stopped short of showing the worst of the worst, so that leads you to suggest that you deserve a break?

I’m afraid not, Jared.

Five years is not only insufficient, it would be a sign — a big, fat neon sign — that our justice system is irrevocably broken. Five years would be an outrage topped only by things such as the sickening crimes that he committed. Five years would allow him to wander free before some of his victims have even completed high school.

I can be as much of a bleeding heart as just about anyone, and I tend to be struck, for right or wrong, by the fact that many people who commit crimes were victims themselves at one point, and often as children. But Fogle and people like him cross a line that is too serious and too damaging to respond with anything approaching leniency.

I was pleased to read in a story by my Indy Star colleagues Tim Evans and Mark Alesia that Judge Pratt is “widely regarded as the toughest in Indiana’s southern district.” That’s the type of judge Fogle deserves.

I’ve not published a column about this case before now because plenty of excellent reporters, particularly at my paper, were producing exhaustive work on it. But when the story first began to break in July, with feds raiding Fogle’s house and speculation swirling, I wrote a column that I chose not to publish.

“I hope this story isn’t what it seems,” I wrote back then. “I hope this is just another part of an earlier investigation that had some unfortunate collateral damage for a TV pitchman. I hope. And then I feel bad for even worrying about that. Worrying about a guy just because I’ve somehow grown to like him through years of TV commercials? How silly. How lacking in perspective is that? The crime at the core of this story is what is important. The children in those photos — those disgusting and criminal photos found on his assistant’s computers — they are what is important.”

When Fogle is sentenced Thursday, those victims are indeed all that should matter. With those children in mind, count me among the many who believe that the 38-year-old sex offender will have gotten off lucky if he receives any sentence that allows him to walk free again one day.

In Fogle’s legal brief, his lawyers say he is “profoundly sorry for what he has done,” but in reality he’d likely still be doing it today if he hadn’t been caught. His lawyers say he is “painfully aware of the fact that he has impacted the lives of minor victims,” but given his ridiculous plea for leniency it seems clear that he doesn’t come close to getting it.

“Mr. Fogle respectfully submits,” the brief reads, “that a term of imprisonment of 60 months is an appropriate sentence that is sufficient.”

No, it’s not. It’s not even close. A term of 60 months would be a travesty.

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You can reach me at matthew.tully@indystar.com or on Twitter: @matthewltully.