A new docuseries about disgraced Subway pitchman Jared Fogle is sure to give the convicted pedophile a stomach-churning ego boost, says Steve Nigg, the former Colorado inmate who famously "beat the hell" out of Fogle back in 2016, when both were inmates in FCI Englewood.
"He's loving this," said Nigg on Monday, March 6, just hours before the docuseries Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster was set to air on the ID channel and Discovery+. "He has such an ego problem. And he's so arrogant. That's one of the reasons I just lost it."
Nigg lost it on January 29, 2016, when both he and Fogle were walking around the exercise yard at the federal correctional facility. Nigg, a Chicago native, was locked up on gun charges for being a felon caught with a firearm. Fogle, who is from Indianapolis, was — and still is — serving a fifteen-year sentence for child sex tourism and child pornography.
Before his fall from grace, Fogle attained legendary status in the early 2000s as Subway's pitchman and weight-loss spokesman, after he managed to lose over 200 pounds eating nothing but Subway sandwiches for his diet.
Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster describes how Fogle was outed as a child predator and brought to justice in 2015 with help from a woman named Rochelle Herman, who secretly recorded conversations she had with Fogle about despicable things he had done, including abusing minors in Thailand. Nigg — a self-admitted "hater of child molesters" — says that his encounter with the former "$5 footlong" guy left Fogle battered and bruised.
"I caught him on the athletic field, on the track," Nigg recalled. "The other [child molestors] he hangs out with were there all ran because they knew my reputation and why I was there. And I just beat the hell out of him."
Nigg was released from federal lockup on February 17, after serving a twelve-year prison stint. He said he knows "for certain" that Fogle is going to be "getting off on having his name out there like this," despite all the horrifying details in the ID docuseries.
"At least it's not going to be in a good light for him," Nigg pointed out. "But he has no remorse. I'm sure he's kicking back and just loving this. All the child molesters are probably proud of him, too. They felt good when he got [to FCI Englewood] because they had someone they could look up to, and probably still do. That all went to his head and his ego."
Nigg claims to have taken out at least one "child molester" at every prison he's been in. "I ended up smashing one at every place I was at," Nigg said, adding that he wasn't a "one-hit wonder," though Fogle was definitely a favorite.
"I have 21 incident reports in total," Nigg said. "I smashed 21 of them, and was only found guilty four times. Each time, I was transferred to a new prison. And each time, I was perfectly fine with it. In fact, I often had guards and COs [correctional officers] who would come up to me — in private, of course, when I was in the hole or whatever — and they would say, 'Thanks, man. I wish I could do that.'"
Now living at Independence House, a transition facility in Denver, Nigg said that he wants to use the Fogle docuseries to create positive attention for a nonprofit child abuse organization he's trying to start with his nephew, Jimmy Nigg, and abuse victims.
"Even though I know Jared is getting off on all of this and getting his name out there, the documentary helps me in a big way, because I'm trying to get this nonprofit organization together, and I want to start raising money for child abuse victims and centers for people affected by monsters," Nigg explained. "That's what Jared did for me. All that suffering, all that sitting in the hole for months and moving prisons for what I did to him, was actually good suffering in the end. And I have no complaints about any of it. I'm 67, and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat."