Ex-Subway pitchman lays blame on victim’s parents

INDIANAPOLIS — Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle’s legal attempt to shift the blame onto the parents of one of his child pornography victims for the girl’s emotional distress is a “bizarre” argument, one legal expert said Friday.

In a motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, Fogle’s attorneys asked a federal judge to approve a third-party complaint to add the girl’s parents as defendants in the daughter’s suit, which seeks at least $300,000 in damages.

The filing argues that the parents of the girl — who unknowingly appeared in some of the child pornography that led to Fogle’s criminal conviction last year — are to blame for what it describes as her “destructive behaviors.”

It contends they fought and abused alcohol in front of her and may be liable for some or all of her claims Fogle faces in the lawsuit, arguing that that family strife and their divorce are among causes of the girl’s distress.

Harold J. Krent, dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Institute of Technology, said he’s puzzled by Fogle’s argument that the parents’ allegedly negligent supervision of the girl “caused her to suffer emotional distress and psychological injury,” as the court filing states.

“To suggest that negligent supervision of a child somehow led to these psychological damages, from being tricked into pornography, to becoming a child pornography victim, seems to me to be outlandish,” Krent said Friday. “That claim strikes me as being bizarre.”

M. Michael Stephenson, the attorney for the girl who is suing Fogle, declined to comment Friday on Fogle’s filing.

Fogle’s attorney, Ron Elberger, also declined to comment Friday.