Rochelle Berman’s “monster” quest for justice hit much closer to home.
The former radio and television host secretly recorded countless hours of conversations with former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle in an attempt to prove he was a child predator.
“Will you let me see your children naked?” Fogle surprisingly asked Herman, then the mother of a 10-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, in one such taped exchange.
The question took a stomach-churning turn for Herman.
“It was a very important, significant, critical moment in my life,” Herman told The Post recently, reflecting on the event. “I feel like I died that day.”
His undercover operation also revealed chilling conversations in which Fogle expressed interest in the children’s “good, clean bodies,” suggested that he and Herman should “try watching some child porn videos together,” and Even told of a sexual encounter with a “little. guy” on a trip to Thailand.
“It was amazing … Oh, it was so hot, baby. It was so, so hot,” Fogle said of the meeting before asking Herman, “Would you rather have a little boy or a little girl?” will you?”
Those recordings — as well as revelations from two of Fogle’s victims and his onetime key associate, Russell Taylor — are laid bare in a new docu-series, “Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster,” premiering Monday, March 6 on the ID Network and Discovery+.
The program includes several other gruesome, never-before-heard statements by Fogle from the undercover operation by Herman, who became an FBI asset in an effort to build the case. (Fogle declined to participate in the docu-series.)
Fogle lost 245 pounds eating Subway sandwiches before becoming the company’s pitchman. When he wasn’t making commercials, going to schools to talk about diet and exercise, and making millions of dollars as the public face of the company, he was hanging out with the likes of Will Ferrell, George W. Bush, and the fuzzy Muppets pal Kermit. was hanging Miss Piggy, as well as sharing her stories in interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, Piers Morgan and others.
Fogle, a father of two, was also preying on minors.
The initial exchange with Fogle that inspired Herman to Herman took place in 2006 while taping a TV show segment at a Sarasota, Florida, school. Fogle didn’t realize that his and Herman’s microphones were hot — and that’s when he first opened up about the idea to his insider.
“He leaned over to me and, above a whisper, he leaned over and said how hot he thought middle school girls were,” a shocked Herman, 55, recalled to the Post.
“I knew what he said was exactly how he felt. I knew there was something very sinister about this man,” he added. “Behind the smile and friendly demeanor that he gave off was really a mask.”
But Fogle was not the only one in his inner circle to wear a mask. Taylor, his globe-trotting Jared Foundation executive, dated and later married Indiana native Angela Baldwin and became stepfather to her two children, Hannah Parrett and Christian Showalter. He entered the girls’ lives in 2012 when they were 10 and 13 years old respectively.
“When we first met him, he was very charismatic,” Perrett, now 21, told The Post in a joint interview with Showalter. “Bright and outgoing, for sure.”
But that facade faded as their mother — who first raised her children in a “sheltered” religious home, according to Showalter — changed over time, including going out and partying a lot.
“She became a completely different person than she was,” Showalter said.
For Baldwin, that also meant agreeing to install hidden cameras in her home — including the girls’ bedrooms — so that Taylor, an avid videographer, could capture her children in private, intimate moments like “taking a shower, going to the bathroom.” Using, changing my clothes in my bedroom,” Perrett told the Post.
“Jared was the puppet master,” Showalter, now 24, told the Post. “And then Russell and my mom were puppets.”
In April 2015, Taylor was arrested for possession of child pornography and more than 500 explicit images were found in his home, according to the new docu-series. Baldwin The latter was implicated in and arrested for production and possession of child sexual abuse material.
A few months later, in August 2015, Fogel He himself was arrested and charged Child pornography and engaging in commercial sex acts with distribution and underage minors.
Fogle, 45, pleaded guilty to child-obscenity charges and was sentenced in November 2015 to 15½ years in prison. Baldwin More than 33 years were given After a trial in May 2022, while Taylor, who previously pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 27 years.
Unfortunately for Baldwin’s children, as well as FBI mole Herman, the memory of the abuse does not fade.
Showalter and Parrett have seen some of the video and photo evidence compiled by prosecutors — documents that include “full-body nudity” of the two sisters, Parrett said.
“It’s one thing to know something happened. It’s a completely different thing to physically see the evidence of what happened,” Perrett told the Post. “You can’t get those images out of your head. I mean, they’re etched in my mind forever.
“It honestly, like, made me feel really sick.”
Showalter echoed his sentiments, saying that he was “mystified” by the images and felt that he was “almost being reanimated” in the process.
And while neither sister could say they felt “off,” they both agreed their mom met the exact fate.
“I’m a mother now and I don’t know how she could hurt us like this,” said Showalter, who is engaged and has a 10-month-old daughter. “It is very difficult for me to accept. And I think that him being gone and out of our lives has really helped me come to terms with that. “
Her sister Perrette agreed.
“She will be in prison for 33 years, so she has a lot of time to think,” he said. “And I think he should. I couldn’t imagine doing such horrible things to my children and being able to live with myself for the rest of my life.
Herman, meanwhile, wanted to share a message for sexual assault survivors.
“You have all the power,” he said. “Maybe you didn’t have the strength in that moment where you overcame—whether psychological, physical, mental, emotional, any of it. Just pick yourself up and, when you’re at your lowest, So there is nowhere else but above.
All three episodes of “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster” will premiere back-to-back on Monday, March 6 at 9pm on ID and will also stream on Discovery+.
