Rochelle Berman’s “monster” quest for justice veered too near home.
The previous radio and tv host secretly recorded countless hours of conversations with ex-Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle in an effort to prove he was a baby predator.
“Will you let me see your kids naked?” Fogle shockingly asked Herman, a mother of a then-10-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, in a single such taped exchange.
That query marked a stomach-churning turning point for Herman.
“That was a really crucial, pivotal, critical moment in my life,” Herman recently told The Post while reflecting on the incident. “I feel as if I died that day.”
Her covert operation also revealed chilling conversations wherein Fogle expressed interest in children’s “nice, pure bodies,” suggested he and Herman “should try to get some child porn videos to observe together,” and even gushed a few sexual encounter with a “little boy” on a visit to Thailand.
“It was amazing … Oh, it was so hot, baby. It was so, so f–king hot,” Fogle said of the encounter before asking Herman, “Would you somewhat have just a little boy or just a little girl pleasure you?”
Those recordings — in addition to revelations from two victims of Fogle and his onetime key associate, Russell Taylor — are laid bare in a jarring latest docu-series, “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster,” premiering Monday, March 6, on the ID network and Discovery+.
This system includes quite a few other horrific, never-before-heard statements by Fogle from the covert operation by Herman, who became an FBI asset in an effort to construct the case. (Fogle declined to take part in the docu-series.)
Fogle famously lost 245 kilos eating Subway sandwiches before becoming the corporate’s pitchman. When he wasn’t filming commercials, going to colleges to speak about food regimen and exercise, and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars as the corporate’s public face, he was hanging with the likes of Will Ferrell, George W. Bush and fuzzy Muppets pals Kermit and Miss Piggy, plus sharing his stories in interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, Piers Morgan and more.
Fogle, a father of two, also was preying on underage kids.
The initial exchange with Fogle that spurred Herman into motion took place while taping a TV show segment at a Sarasota, Florida, school in 2006. Fogle didn’t realize his and Herman’s microphones were hot – and that’s when he first opened up along with his inner thoughts.
“He had leaned over to me and, above a whisper, he leaned over and he 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 that there was something very sinister about this man,” she continued. “Behind the smile and the friendly presentation that he puts off that that was truly a mask.”
But Fogle wasn’t the just one in his inner circle wearing a mask. Taylor, his globe-trotting Jared Foundation executive, dated and later married Indiana native Angela Baldwin and have become stepfather to her two children, Hannah Parrett and Christian Showalter. He entered into the ladies’ lives in 2012 once they were about 10 and 13 years old, respectively.
“Once we first met him, he was very charismatic,” Parrett, now 21, told The Post in a joint interview alongside Showalter. “Flashy and outgoing, needless to say.”
But that facade faded as their mother – who previously raised her children in a “sheltered” religious household, in line with Showalter – modified over time, including going out quite a bit and partying.
“She just became a very different person than what she was,” Showalter said.
For Baldwin, that even meant agreeing to put hidden cameras throughout their home – including in the ladies’ bedrooms – in order that Taylor, an amateur videographer, could catch her children in private, intimate moments like “having a shower, using the toilet, changing my clothes in my bedroom,” Parrett told The Post.
“Jared was the puppet master,” Showalter, now 24, told The Post. “After which Russell and my mom were the puppets.”
In April 2015, Taylor was arrested for possession of kid pornography and located to have greater than 500 explicit images in his home, in line with the brand new docu-series. Baldwin was later implicated in and arrested for the production and possession of kid sex abuse material.
Just months later, in August 2015, Fogle was himself arrested and charged with child pornography and distribution and fascinating in industrial sex acts with underage minors.
Fogle, 45, pleaded guilty to child-porn charges and was sentenced to 15½ years in prison in November 2015. Baldwin was given greater than 33 years following a trial in May 2022, while Taylor, who previously pleaded guilty, received a 27-year sentence.
Unfortunately for Baldwin’s children, in addition to FBI mole Herman, the memory of the abuse doesn’t fade.
Showalter and Parrett have viewed a number of the video and photo evidence compiled by prosecutors — documentation that included “full-body nudity” of the 2 sisters, Parrett said.
“It’s one thing to have knowledge that something happened. It’s a very different thing to physically see the evidence of what happened,” Parrett told The Post. “You can’t get those images out of your head. I mean, they’re endlessly ingrained in my brain.
“It truthfully, like, made me feel really sick.”
Showalter echoed her sentiments, saying she “was speechless” seeing the photographs and felt like she “was being almost revictimized” in the method.
And while neither sister could say they felt full “closure,” they each agreed that their mom met the proper fate.
“I’m a mother now and I don’t understand how she could have hurt us like that,” said Showalter, who’s engaged and has a 10-month-old daughter. “It just is so hard for me to simply accept it. And I believe that her going away and being out of our lives has really helped me come to terms with it.”
Her sister Parrett agreed.
“She’s going to be in prison for 33 years, so she’s got loads of time to reflect,” she said. “And I feel like she must. I couldn’t imagine doing such horrible things to my children and having the ability to live with myself for the remaining of my life.”
Herman, meanwhile, desired to share a message for other sexual abuse survivors.
“You’ve all the facility,” she said. “You will have not had the strength within the moment where you were overcome – whether psychologically, physically, mentally, emotionally, any of it. Just rise above and, when you find yourself at your lowest, there’s nowhere else but up.”
All three parts of “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster” will premiere back-to-back at 9 p.m. ET Monday, March 6, on ID and in addition will stream on Discovery+.
