Jared Fogle Reportedly Injured In Prison Assault

According to various reports, first from entertainment and gossip outlet TMZ, former Subway spokesman and convicted sex offender Jared Fogle was violently assaulted in prison in late January, suffering injuries to his face, nose, and neck. The 38-year-old pleaded guilty in November 2015 to paying for sex with underage girls, and for possession of child pornography, a pair of charges that exploded into the public consciousness earlier that year, and brought a swift end to his association with the fast-food sandwich chain.

Fogle was ultimately sentenced to more than 15 years in prison ― more than three times what his defense had urged, and three years more than what the prosecutors had argued for ― and was forced to pay restitution to his 14 victims, $100,000 each for a total sum of $1.4 million.

According to the reports, Fogle was ambushed while in the prison yard at the Federal Correction Institution, Englewood (also known as Englewood FCI) in Colorado, by a 60-year-old inmate named Steven Nigg. Englewood FCI is a low-security institution that houses many convicted sex offenders, and it's no secret that inmates convicted of offenses against minors are often targeted within the American prison system, both with physical and sexual violence.

According to TMZ's report, Nigg attacked Fogle out of anger ― Nigg is himself incarcerated there for illegally selling firearms. Nigg, who reportedly suffered some cuts to his hand, was moved to solitary confinement following the attack, which left Fogle with a bloodied nose and facial swelling. The news of Fogle's violent assault came on the heels of some decidedly less newsworthy, far more sensationalist coverage that erupted earlier this March, suggesting that the former weight loss spokesman had gained nearly 30 pounds in his first 16 months in prison ― a claim that his attorney denied.

According to the New York Daily News, Nigg is slated to be released far sooner than the disgraced ex-pitchman. His sentence will be up in 2024, while Fogle isn't eligible for release until July 2029, when he'll be 52 years old. As VICE's Seth Ferranti detailed last year, not everyone convicted of these kinds of heinous crimes ends up making it out of the prison system, either ― in the state of California, there's been a recent surge in murders of incarcerated sex offenders.