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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) —
The former director of a foundation started by ex-Subway pitchman Jared Fogle was sentenced to 27 years in prison Thursday for producing child pornography that played a role in Fogle's criminal case.
A federal judge sentenced Russell Taylor, who agreed in September to plead guilty to child exploitation and child porn charges and admitted using hidden cameras to produce pornography of 12 children. Taylor also will have lifetime supervision after he serves his sentence.
Taylor was executive director of the Jared Foundation, a nonprofit that Fogle started to raise awareness and money to fight childhood obesity, from 2009 until May, when prosecutors filed child porn charges against Taylor.
The minimum sentence under federal law was 15 years. Prosecutors sought a 35-year sentence for the 44-year-old Indianapolis man. His attorneys wanted a sentence ranging from 15 years to nearly 23 years.
Authorities said Taylor secretly filmed 12 children who were nude, changing clothes or engaged in other activities. They said he used cameras hidden in his Indianapolis-area homes to produce child pornography.
Indiana authorities who raided Fogle's suburban Indianapolis home in July have said their probe began in September 2014 based on a tip to Indiana State Police regarding Taylor's sexual interest in children.
Federal prosecutors said Fogle, a 38-year-old father of two, received photos or videos from Taylor of eight of Taylor's 12 child victims and encouraged him to produce more child pornography.
Fogle was sentenced last month to more than 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to trading in child pornography and having sex with two underage prostitutes.
Taylor's attorneys said in a court filing that Taylor is deeply remorseful for his actions, that he has a history of mental illness and that he was sexually abused as a child. They also said that Fogle was psychologically abusive to Taylor and exercised financial control over Taylor after hiring him to run his foundation.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) —
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl says he walked off his base in Afghanistan to cause a crisis that would catch the attention of military brass.
He wanted to warn them about what he believed were serious problems with leadership in his unit. And he wanted to prove himself as a real-life action hero, like someone out of a movie.
Bergdahl hasn't spoken publicly about his decision or his subsequent five-year imprisonment by the Taliban and the prisoner swap that secured his return to the United States. But over the past several months he spoke extensively with screenwriter Mark Boal, who shared about 25 hours of the recorded interviews with Sarah Koenig for her popular podcast, "Serial."
"As a private first-class, nobody is going to listen to me," Bergdahl says in the first episode of the podcast, released Thursday. "No one is going to take me serious that an investigation needs to be put underway."
Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was charged in March with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He faces up to life in prison, though an Army officer has recommended that Bergdahl's case be moved to a special misdemeanor-level military court.
His attorney Eugene Fidell says politicians and would-be politicians have been using Bergdahl as a talking point to push their own agendas for months, a situation he described as creating "gale-force political winds."
The more the public can hear Bergdahl's own words, the better, Fidell told The Associated Press.
"Some of the information that is going to come out is inevitably not going to be what we would have preferred in a perfect universe, but net-net, we'll take it and allow people in our democratic society to form their own opinions," Fidell said.
Bergdahl's interview is another coup for makers of "Serial," which established podcasts as a viable outlet when the first season was downloaded more than 100 million times. Makers wouldn't say how long the new season would last; the first one was 12 separate episodes.
In the episode, Bergdahl says he wanted to expose the "leadership failure" he experienced in Afghanistan. The episode does not elaborate on what that failure was, but he says he believed at the time his disappearance and his plan to reappear at another location would give him access to top officials. After leaving the base after midnight, he worries about the reception he'll get once he reappears, and decides to try to get information on who was planting bombs in the area. That information will help smooth things over with angry military officials, he figures.
Sarah Koenig, the host and executive producer of "Serial," describes Bergdahl as a "radical, idiosyncratic" man in the episode. She says Bergdahl shipped his personal items home, bought local attire and pulled out $300 in U.S. dollars and Afghanis ahead of leaving the base.
Bergdahl acknowledges his motives weren't entirely idealistic.
"I was trying to prove to myself, I was trying to prove to the world, to anybody who used to know me ... I was capable of being what I appeared to be," Bergdahl says. "Doing what I did was me saying I am like Jason Bourne. I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world I was the real thing."
He says after the sun came up, a group of men on motorcycles captured him as he walked through nearby flatland desert.
He also discusses the psychological torment of being held captive for years.
"It's like how do I explain to a person that just standing in an empty dark room hurts?" Bergdahl recounts. "It's like well, a person asked me, 'Why does it hurt? Does your body hurt?' Yes, your body hurts but it's more than that. It's mental, like, almost confused. ... I would wake up not even remembering what I was."
He adds: "It's like you're standing there, screaming in your mind."
Today in History
Today is Friday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2015. There are 20 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Dec. 11, 1844, the first experimental use of an inhaled anesthetic in dentistry took place as Dr. Horace Wells of Hartford, Connecticut, under the influence of nitrous oxide, had a colleague extract one of his teeth.
On this date:
In 1792, France's King Louis XVI went before the Convention to face charges of treason. (Louis was convicted, and executed the following month.)
In 1816, Indiana became the 19th state.
In 1928, police in Buenos Aires announced they had thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.
In 1936, Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, became King George VI.
In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.
In 1946, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.
In 1964, Che Guevara addressed the United Nations; in his speech, the Argentine revolutionary declared that "the final hour of colonialism has struck." Singer-songwriter Sam Cooke was shot to death by a motel manager in Los Angeles; he was 33.
In 1972, Apollo 17's lunar module landed on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; during three extravehicular activities (EVAs), they became the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental "superfund" to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps. "Magnum P.I.," starring Tom Selleck, premiered on CBS.
In 1994, leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations signed a free-trade declaration in Miami.
In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth's greenhouse gases.
In 2008, Bernie Madoff was arrested, accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. (Madoff is serving a 150-year federal prison sentence.)
Ten years ago: Thousands of drunken white youths, angered by reports that youths of Lebanese descent had assaulted two lifeguards, attacked police and people they believed were Arab immigrants at a beach in Sydney, Australia; young men of Arab descent retaliated in several Sydney suburbs, fighting with police and smashing cars. Explosions ripped through a major fuel depot north of London, injuring 43 people; the cause of the blasts was later found to be accidental. Paramount Pictures announced it was buying independent film studio DreamWorks SKG Inc.
Five years ago: The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, 46-year-old Mark Madoff, hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. A U.N. conference in Cancun, Mexico, adopted a modest climate deal. Auburn quarterback Cam Newton won the Heisman Trophy.
One year ago: CIA Director John Brennan, responding to a U.S. Senate torture report, acknowledged that "abhorrent tactics" were used on terror detainees but said it was "unknown and unknowable" whether the harsh treatment yielded crucial intelligence that could have been gained in any other way. An outbreak of the mumps, a highly contagious illness more typically associated with children, continued to spread throughout the National Hockey League.
Today's Birthdays: Actor Jean-Louis Trintignant is 85. Actress Rita Moreno is 84. Former California state lawmaker Tom Hayden is 76. Pop singer David Gates (Bread) is 75. Actress Donna Mills is 75. U.S. Ambassador to China, former Sen. Max Baucus, is 74. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is 72. Singer Brenda Lee is 71. Actress Lynda Day George is 71. Music producer Tony Brown is 69. Actress Teri Garr is 68. Movie director Susan Seidelman is 63. Actress Bess Armstrong is 62. Singer Jermaine Jacksun is 61. Rock musician Mike Mesaros (The Smithereens) is 58. Rock musician Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue) is 57. Rock musician Darryl Jones (The Rolling Stones) is 54. Actor Ben Browder is 53. Singer-musician Justin Currie (Del Amitri) is 51. Rock musician David Schools (Hard Working Americans, Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic) is 51. Actor Gary Dourdan (DOOR'-dan) is 49. Actress-comedian Mo'Nique is 48. Actor Max Martini is 46. Rapper-actor Mos Def is 42. Actor Rider Strong is 36. Actress Xosha (ZOH'-shah) Roquemore is 31. Actress Karla Souza is 29. Actress Hailee Steinfeld is 19.
Thought for Today: "Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to." — Denis Diderot, French philosopher (1713-1784).