Subway has distanced itself from Jared Fogle in the wake of his guilty plea for child pornography and sexual misconduct, commenting that he no longer has a relationship with the company and they had no prior knowledge of his conduct. Many have claimed to have submitted complaints about Fogle, but the restaurant did not have them on record and started an internal review on the matter. Now the results are back and according to the AP, the company admits they should have “acted upon” the complaint sooner:
Subway’s investigation included a review of more than a million online comments and interviews with past and present employees and managers of the company and an advertising fund, the statement said.
Subway spokeswoman Kristen McMahon said the company received the “serious” complaint in 2011 from Rochelle Herman-Walrond, a former journalist from Florida who revealed publicly to WWSB-TV in Sarasota last month that she also took her concerns to the FBI and secretly recorded her phone conversations with Fogle for more than four years to assist the agency’s investigation.
McMahon said the 2011 complaint “expressed concerns about Mr. Fogle,” but included “nothing that implied anything about sexual behavior or criminal activity involving Mr. Fogle.” She declined to elaborate on the nature of the complaint.
The company noted that it found no other complaints about Fogle in their investigation, leaving the claims of a former franchisee who alleged Fogle solicited her for sex with minors unchecked. This is despite a subpoena by the FBI into the complaint.
Some thoughtful employees of the company decided to make the best of a bad situation by removing the former spokesman from their local restaurant in the only way they knew how:
Whatever works, right?