Why wasn’t Jared Fogle charged with child sex trafficking?
The Justice Department complaint against former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle fully reveals how he used his power and celebrity to exploit vulnerable children. But Fogle will only plead guilty to child pornography charges and to traveling to engage in illicit sexual contact with a minor. A recent Post blog post asked why Fogle wasn’t charged with rape. We have another question: Why wasn’t he charged with child sex trafficking?
According to his signed plea agreement, Fogle paid for sex with at least two minors and offered a finders fee to others if they could find him children as young as 14 to sexually abuse — which under federal law makes him a child sex trafficker. Certainly, Fogle’s crimes constitute rape, but Fogle was also an active participant in the child sex-trafficking marketplace. Indeed, the Fogle case is a classic example of child sex trafficking in the United States. He should have been charged accordingly.
The documents released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office show that Fogle used the Internet and social media to initiate contact with children. The Internet is consistently used for the recruitment and sale of children in the United States. Since 2009, in Cook County, Ill., alone, more than 50 arrests for sex trafficking were made using information found online.
Read more here.