INDIANAPOLIS — The former head of the Jared Fogle Foundation was sentenced to 27 years in prison Thursday.
Russell Taylor, 44, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of creation and distribution of child pornography.
Judge Tanya Walton Pratt gave him a moderate sentence — more than the 15 to 23 years suggested by the defense, but substantially lower than the 35 years recommended by the prosecution.
“The departure (from the recommended sentence) is based on his assistance of authorities in providing information about Jared Fogle and his lack of a criminal history,” Pratt said when delivering the sentence.
Taylor must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence. At minimum, he will be 65 years old when he is released. He will then have a lifetime of supervision to ensure he does not repeat his crimes.
Taylor placed cameras throughout his home to capture footage of children bathing, changing and masturbating. Many of the children — as young as 9 and as old as 16 — were Taylor’s relatives. None were aware of the recordings.
Taylor asserted the cameras were for security purposes, yet they were placed in bedrooms and bathrooms: near places that were likely to catch people in various states of undress. Taylor does not appear in any of the videos, except brief footage that shows him setting up the cameras.
Two of the victims said they had oral sex with Taylor when they were younger than 16 and that afterward Taylor drove them to a truck stop and withdrew money from an ATM to pay them. A search of Taylor’s home revealed commercial pornography of 6-year-olds, both boys and girls.
Despite this, Taylor claimed he has no sexual attraction to children. He said he was motivated by Fogle, who encouraged him to make the recordings. Fogle denies this.
“I’ve always been an outcast,” Taylor said, as he stood before the judge. “I met someone who was rich and famous and wanted to be my friend, and as a result I made terrible mistakes.”
In a November evaluation, Dr. Robin Kohli, the witness for the defense, said Taylor had a traumatic childhood that contributed to his crimes. Taylor suffered physical abuse at the hands of his mother. When Taylor was young, he was sodomized by a neighbor and the neighbor’s son — his only friend.
“These interactions taught him to associate friendship with negative sexual activity, with abuse,” Kohli said. “It’s evident that this played out with Fogle as well.”
Fogle and Taylor’s relationship was far from what’s appropriate between employer and employee, said defense attorney Brad Banks. Fogle took Taylor on various trips overseas, to Colts games and commercial shoots in Los Angeles. He owned Taylor’s home and paid his salary. After Taylor’s arrest, when it became clear Taylor was cooperating with authorities, Fogle filed a motion to foreclose Taylor’s home.
Still, several signs pointed to Taylor continuing his crimes outside of Fogle’s influence. Although Taylor was in possession of pornography of 12 children, footage of only eight were shared with Fogle.
Text messages from January of this year between Taylor and the 17-year-old boyfriend of one victim showed that Taylor tried to “groom” some children for sexual activity — inviting them to parties and often providing them with marijuana, alcohol and ecstasy. In the texts, Taylor tried to convince the boy to bring the victim, who was 14 at the time, to a sex party at his house.
“We normally never party with people under 16,” Taylor said in one message, “But sometimes people end up naked and playing games and you never know what’s gonna happen.”
The sheer number and duration of Taylor’s offenses are most telling of his character, despite his claims of childhood trauma and Fogle’s influence, said senior litigation counsel Steven DeBrota.
“It’s a sobering thing. There are 12 victims, 12 individualized decisions to collect child porn,” DeBrota said. “These all required him to be calculating, patient, manipulative and motivated.”
Taylor attempted to hang himself while being held in Marion County Jail in May, after he suffered physical assaults at the hands of other prisoners. Since then, he has been held in a facility in Kentucky. Now, he will be taken to a prison in Marianna, Florida. The defense requested that Taylor go there to be treated for his sexual and mental disorders and also be closer to his father, who lives in the state and wishes to visit him.
Taylor — handcuffed and unshaven in a green prison jumpsuit — wept as he addressed the courtroom. He spoke of how haunted he has been by his actions and said he has gone to sleep in “a puddle of tears” every night since his arrest.
“I promise you’ve never had a person more remorseful than I am,” Taylor told the judge.
Pratt acknowledged Taylor’s remorse, his vital role in Fogle’s incarceration, his mental instability and his traumatic childhood. However, she said the latter should have been the greatest deterrent from his actions.
“Taylor knew first-hand the scars of such abuse, yet the harm to his victims is immense,” Pratt said. “The awful reality is that he knew right from wrong, and he preyed upon those he should have loved and cared about.”
