subway pitchman Future of Fogle’s foundation unclear after raid

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS

Suspended Subway pitchman Jared Fogle’s foundation, which encourages children to avoid the same obesity he experienced in college, faces an uncertain future after a raid at his home two months after the group’s then-executive director was arrested on child pornography charges.

A phone number to the Jared Foundation Inc. was out of service and its website was down Wednesday, a day after federal and state authorities seized electronics and other items from Fogle’s suburban Indianapolis home. Fogle hasn’t been charged with any crime, and his attorney, Ron Elberger, said the 37-year-old is cooperating with authorities “in their investigation of unspecified charges.”

After the raid, Subway suspended its relationship with Fogle, who shed 245 pounds more than 15 years ago as a college student, in part by regularly eating the restaurant’s sandwiches.

The secretary of state’s office in Indiana, where the group was registered in 2004 as a nonprofit corporation, said that it had administratively dissolved the foundation in February 2012. Valerie Kroeger, a spokesman for the state agency, said that action was taken after the foundation failed to pay annual $5 reporting fees the two previous years despite being notified multiple times by the office.

“That means they’re no longer registered with the state to do business,” she said.

Despite the state’s action, the foundation retains its tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, allowing it to receive tax- deductible contributions. According to the foundation’s annual filing with the IRS in 2013, the most recent one available, the group’s revenues were about $127,000 and expenses topped $148,000.

That form also showed that its “program service expenses” were about $100,000 and that $40,000 in salary was paid that year to Russell Taylor, who had been the foundation’s executive director from May 2008 until shortly after his May arrest on child-pornography charges.