Rochelle Berman’s “monster” quest for justice veered too close to home.
The former radio and television host secretly recorded countless hours of conversations with ex-Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle in an effort to prove he was a child 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 one such taped exchange.
That question marked a stomach-churning turning point for Herman.
“That was a very crucial, pivotal, critical moment in my life,” Herman recently told The Post while reflecting on the incident. “I feel as though I died that day.”
Her covert operation also revealed chilling conversations in which Fogle expressed interest in children’s “nice, pure bodies,” suggested he and Herman “should try and get some child porn videos to watch together,” and even gushed about a sexual encounter with a “little boy” on a trip 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 rather have a little boy or a little girl pleasure you?”
Those recordings — as well as revelations from two victims of Fogle and his onetime key associate, Russell Taylor — are laid bare in a jarring new docuseries, “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster,” premiering March 6, on the ID network and Discovery+.
The program includes numerous other horrific, never-before-heard statements by Fogle from the covert operation by Herman, who became an FBI asset in an effort to build the case. (Fogle declined to participate in the docuseries.)
Fogle famously lost 245 pounds eating Subway sandwiches before becoming the company’s pitchman. When he wasn’t filming commercials, going to schools to talk about diet and exercise, and raking in millions of dollars as the company’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 action 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 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 only one in his inner circle wearing 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 into the girls’ lives in 2012 when they were about 10 and 13 years old, respectively.
“When we first met him, he was very charismatic,” Parrett, now 21, told The Post in a joint interview alongside Showalter. “Flashy and outgoing, for sure.”
But that facade faded as their mother – who previously raised her children in a “sheltered” religious household, according to Showalter – changed over time, including going out a lot and partying.
“She just became a completely different person than what she was,” Showalter said.
For Baldwin, that even meant agreeing to place hidden cameras throughout their home – including in the girls’ bedrooms – so that Taylor, an amateur videographer, could catch her children in private, intimate moments like “taking a shower, using the bathroom, changing my clothes in my bedroom,” Parrett told The Post.
“Jared was the puppet master,” Showalter, now 24, told The Post. “And then Russell and my mom were the puppets.”
In April 2015, Taylor was arrested for possession of child pornography and found to have more than 500 explicit images in his home, according to the new docu-series. Baldwin was later implicated in and arrested for the production and possession of child sex abuse material.
Just months later, in August 2015, Fogle was himself arrested and charged with child pornography and distribution and engaging in commercial 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 more 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, as well as FBI mole Herman, the memory of the abuse does not fade.
Showalter and Parrett have viewed some of the video and photo evidence compiled by prosecutors — documentation that included “full-body nudity” of the two sisters, Parrett said.
“It’s one thing to have knowledge that something happened. It’s a completely different thing to physically see the evidence of what happened,” Parrett told The Post. “You cannot get those images out of your head. I mean, they are forever ingrained in my brain.
“It honestly, like, made me feel really sick.”
Showalter echoed her sentiments, saying she “was speechless” seeing the images and felt like she “was being almost revictimized” in the process.
And while neither sister could say they felt full “closure,” they both agreed that their mom met the correct fate.
“I’m a mother now and I don’t know how she could have hurt us like that,” said Showalter, who is engaged and has a 10-month-old daughter. “It just is so hard for me to accept it. And I think 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 plenty of time to reflect,” she said. “And I feel like she needs to. 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 other sexual abuse survivors.
“You have all the power,” she said. “You may have not had the strength in the moment where you were overcome – whether psychologically, physically, mentally, emotionally, any of it. Just rise above and, when you are 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 also will stream on Discovery+.
