NEW YORK (AP) — A former franchisee alerted an executive in charge of Subway's advertising in 2008 about her concerns about pitchman Jared Fogle, according to her lawyer. 
 
 Cindy Mills exchanged phone numbers with Fogle after they met at an event, said Robert Beasley, a lawyer in Florida who represents Mills. After Fogle began talking about paying for sex with minors, the lawyer said Mills alerted a regional Subway contact in Florida where her stores were based. 
 
 Later, he said Mills alerted Jeff Moody, who was in charge of the Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, which handles the company's marketing. At the time, Subway's franchise advertising fund was controlled by franchisees, said Don Sniegowski, editor of Blue MauMau, a site for franchisees. Subway had little say in the fund, but gained control of it in 2010 after a lawsuit, he said. 
 
 Subway did not respond to a request for comment late Thursday. The company has said it does not have a record of the complaints about Fogle by the former franchisee, which were previously reported by Business Insider. The publication initially kept Mills' identity anonymous at her request, but identified her on Thursday. It also identified Moody as the Subway executive she alerted. 
 
 Beasley said Mills became comfortable about coming forward after Fogle agreed on Aug. 19 to plead guilty to allegations that he paid for sex with girls as young as 16 and received child pornography. Mills was not immediately available for comment Thursday evening. But according to Beasley: 
 
 —Fogle told her about paying for sex with minors on a trip to Thailand, and paying for sex with a 16-year-old he found on Craigslist. 
 
 —She offered to show Moody the texts from Fogle, but Moody stopped her and said he didn't want to hear anymore. 
 
 —Moody said he had dealt with similar comments, and reassured Mills that Fogle had met a teacher who would get him on the right track. 
 
 "To me, it was confirmation that they knew about it," Beasley said. 
 
 Beasley said Mills explored the idea of suing Subway, but that there is a "good bit of legal separation between Jared and Subway." Beasley said the company is structured in a way that insulates it from Fogle. 
 
 Phone numbers listed for Jeff Moody and Theresa Moody, who is listed as a property co-owner, were not answered Thursday. When reached by The Associated Press earlier this week, a woman who identified herself as Theresa Moody said Jeff Moody did not want to speak about the Fogle case. 
 
 Jeff Moody is currently CEO of Rita's Italian Ice, according to LinkedIn. The site says he was CEO of Subway's franchise advertising fund between 2007 and 2011. 
 
 The agreement with Fogle released by prosecutors last week said Fogle will pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 minor victims, who will each get $100,000. The document noted that the payments would not prevent any victims from pursuing civil litigation. 
 
 The government agreed not to seek a sentence of more than 12 1/2 years in prison, and Fogle agreed not to ask for less than five years. 
 
 The same day authorities announced the deal with Fogle, Subway said it had ended its relationship with its pitchman of 15 years. The company has also said it's investigating a second claim, made by a former journalist, that it was alerted to concerns about Fogle. 
 
 When prosecutors charged Fogle on Aug. 19, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven DeBrota said that there were no charges or allegations at the time that anybody at Subway knew what Fogle was doing. 
 
 Fogle attorney Ron Elberger declined to comment Thursday. Tim Horty, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Indianapolis, said the office cannot confirm the names of any of the sources the government used in its investigation of Fogle. 
 
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 AP Writer Rick Callahan contributed from Indianapolis. 
 
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 Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi ||||| Disgraced former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle. AP A former Subway franchisee claims she warned Subway about Jared Fogle's sexual interest in children seven years ago and that the sandwich chain did nothing. 
 
 Cindy Mills says that Fogle, Subway's pitchman for 15 years, started calling her daily and making disturbing comments in early 2008, shortly after they had met at a Subway function. 
 
 "He would just tell me he really liked them young," Mills told Business Insider. 
 
 Mills was a Subway franchisee from 2006 to 2012 in Pensacola, Florida. 
 
 Fogle was charged last week with possessing and distributing child pornography and traveling across state lines to have sex with minors. 
 
 He plans to plead guilty to the crimes and pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 victims. 
 
 Mills says Fogle admitted to her that he'd had sex with minors, telling her about trysts with child prostitutes between the ages of 9 and 16 years old in Thailand and the US. 
 
 Mills previously told Business Insider that Fogle allegedly tried to get her to sell herself for sex on Craigslist. When she first spoke with us, she requested anonymity. She said she didn't want more press attention at the time. But now that Fogle's case has been exposed, she says she feels comfortable using her name. 
 
 Mills says she shared this information with Subway in 2008 but that the company ignored her complaints. That's when she decided to hire a lawyer. 
 
 "I thought, 'This man has a lot of money. Subway has a lot money. They have made each other a lot of money,'" Mills said. "I was worried. I was scared to death." 
 
 She asked her lawyer, Robert Beasley, to explore legal action against Subway for a potential breach of the franchiser-franchisee contact. 
 
 Gary Tramontina AP Images for SUBWAY Restaurants But Subway couldn't be found culpable, Beasley said, because Fogle wasn't an employee of Subway. Fogle was employed by the Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, or SFAFT. 
 
 SFAFT, which is in charge of Subway's global marketing, was legally viewed as a separate entity from Subway — even though it shares the same address as the company headquarters. 
 
 "They have pretty well isolated themselves from Jared's acts," Beasley told Business Insider. "We couldn't find an avenue to pursue where it would connect his acts and statements to any legal liability to Subway. Combine that with [Mills'] unwillingness to get out in public and say this and you end up staying silent." 
 
 Subway didn't respond to a request for comment on this story. 
 
 The company said Wednesday that it is investigating whether executives were aware of Fogle's interest in children. 
 
 Mills says that when she contacted Subway about Fogle's behavior in 2008, the company directed her to Jeff Moody, then CEO of SFAFT. Mills says that she spoke to Moody on the phone and told him about Fogle's disturbing comments about children. 
 
 REUTERS/Subway/Ray Stubblebine/HO Mills says Moody cut her off in the middle of the conversation, saying, "Please don't tell me any more." 
 
 He indicated that he had dealt with similar complaints in the past, according to Mills. 
 
 "He said, 'Don't worry, he has met someone. She is a teacher and he seems to love her very much, and we think she will help keep him grounded,'" Mills recalls. 
 
 Moody, now CEO of Rita's Italian Ice, did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 In a July 31 statement regarding the matter, Subway told Business Insider, "Jeff Moody hasn't worked for the brand for years and we have no record of this allegation." 
 
 Mills says she didn't drop the issue after her alleged conversation with Moody. 
 
 She says she also contacted a regional Subway manager tasked with making sure franchisees have all appropriate signage and advertising in their stores. 
 
 Mills says she asked the manager — whose name she couldn't recall — if she could remove all Jared Fogle signage from her store. 
 
 "Every time I would see him on TV in a commercial with his arms around these children, it would kill me," Mills said. "I couldn't stand it anymore." 
 
 Mills says her request to remove Fogle marketing from her store was denied. 
 
 AP Mills says she went on to share her concerns about Fogle with two additional SFAFT executives at a Subway-sponsored NASCAR event in Phoenix, which she attended with her stepson. She'd won tickets to the event because she was a franchisee. 
 
 Mills said she was terrified that Jared might show up. She says she pulled two SFAFT executives aside and told them everything. They assured her that Fogle wasn't scheduled to attend the event. 
 
 When asked why she never went to law enforcement with her concerns, Mills said it was because she was terrified of Fogle's money and influence. She says she was also concerned about her job with Subway. 
 
 "I thought, 'No one is going to believe me, he looks like the all-American boy' — but he's not," she said. 
 
 Mills says the last time she saw Fogle was at Subway's annual convention in 2011, held in San Francisco that year. 
 
 Mills was seated in a giant ballroom at a dinner with hundreds of guests when she spotted Moody and Fogle walking toward her, she recalls. 
 
 They took a seat next to each other at the table beside hers, according to Mills. 
 
 "I felt so uneasy," Mills said. 
 
 Not long after, Mills sold her Subway franchises and got out of the business. 
 
 She says she decided to come forward with her story in hopes of inspiring others at Subway with information about Fogle's past to come forward as well.
– Subway may have known about spokesperson Jared Fogle's alleged desire to have sex with children since 2008. At least, that's what the former owner of a Subway restaurant in Florida tells Business Insider. Cindy Mills, who was a Subway franchisee from 2006 to 2012, says Fogle started calling her every day after she met him at a company event in 2008. She says he would make inappropriate comments, telling her "he really liked them young." Mills says Fogle told her he'd had sex with child prostitutes, some as young as 9, in both Thailand and the United States and even encouraged her to prostitute herself on Craigslist. Mills says she went to executives within the company with her concerns but was ignored. Her attorney has confirmed the allegations to AP. Mills tells Business Insider she spoke to the CEO of Subway's affiliated advertising company, which employed Fogle, and he told her Fogle had recently met a woman who would hopefully "help keep him grounded." Mills offered to show the executive texts from Fogle, but he stopped her, reports AP. The executive, Jeff Moody, is no longer affiliated with Subway and has declined to discuss Fogle. Mills says she didn't go to police because she feared Fogle's "money and influence" and didn't want to lose her job. Business Insider reports Mills did request to remove all images of Fogle from her restaurant, but Subway denied that request. "Every time I would see him on TV in a commercial with his arms around these children, it would kill me," Mills says. "I couldn't stand it anymore." (A talented police dog played a crucial role in Fogle's arrest.)