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Felons: Fogle plea deal a 'slap in the face'

Posted at 7:17 PM, Sep 14, 2015
and last updated 2015-09-14 22:17:22-04

The judge who will decide Jared Fogle's sentence has received calls to throw out a plea deal from an unexpected source: convicted felons already behind bars for child pornography.

In a letter to Federal Magistrate Judge Mark Dinsmore, who presided over Fogle's initial hearing, inmate Thomas Ford asks the judge to reject the "ludicrous" plea agreement between Fogle and prosecutors.

"I understand that Mr. Fogle will be paying restitution to the 14 victims, but the fact the he has assests [sic] to throw around does not negate him from being punished for his egregious actions and behaviors," Ford wrote. "Just the fact that he has 14 VICTIMS is enough to consider a sentence far and away more appropriate than the reported plea agreement."

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Ford claims to be serving a 198-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida, for one count of distribution of child pornography.

The details of the plea deal reached between Fogle and prosecutors were released last month. In it, Fogle admitted to receiving visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and to traveling to New York City for sex with at least two minors.

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As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to ask for a sentence of more than 12.5 years. Fogle's defense team in return agreed to ask for no less than 5 years.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, who will actually decide Fogle's sentence, also received a letter from an inmate in the Arizona penitentiary system calling the proposed sentencing range a "slap in the face."

Scott Petrie wrote that he is serving a 40-year sentence at the United State Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, for trading child pornography. He said he feels Fogle has been "undercharged."

"What a deal," Petrie wrote. "I would have jumped on that too because in about 10 years Mr. Fogle will come out of prison, be a multi-millionaire still and will still like little or young girls … I know, I'm a pedophile, and the only message his plea deal is sending is that if your [sic] rich enough you can play but it will cost you some money and some time."

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A sentencing date in Fogle's case was set for Nov. 19. That's the day he's expected to officially change his plea to guilty, as he promised he would do under an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office.

It's also the day Ford and Petrie hope Judge Pratt will choose to give Fogle a "punishment commensurate with his disregard for the law and his capacity for sexually endangering America's children."

"This is one of those 'dirty-little-crimes- that rarely gets the media's attention after the initial headline and quietly goes away," Ford wrote in his letter. "Please take this opportunity to address this crime with an appropriate punishment that honors the public's expectation of justice AND that shows the victims of this crime, many of whom remain nameless, that we as a community will not tolerate the willful and deliberate sexual abuse of children."

READ BOTH LETTERS BELOW: