CLOSE “I filed this lawsuit because I have questions.” Wochit 
 
 Buy Photo Jared Fogle enters the Birch Bayh Federal Building and United States Courthouse for sentencing, Thursday, November 19, 2015. (Photo: Kelly Wilkinson / The Star)Buy Photo 
 
 Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle hired a team of expensive lawyers from Indianapolis and Chicago when he was charged in a federal sex and pornography case that attracted international attention. 
 
 Despite that legal fire-power, Fogle ended up pleading guilty in 2015 to sordid allegations that he traveled across state lines to engage in sex with a minor and possessed child pornography. 
 
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 More: Subway seeks dismissal of lawsuit alleging it hid Jared Fogle's misconduct to fuel profits 
 
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 A year later, the Hoosier who earned millions hyping Subway and a healthy lifestyle turned to a public defender for an unsuccessful appeal of his nearly 16-year prison sentence. 
 
 Now, Fogle is again challenging his guilty plea and lengthy sentence. But this time, he’s doing it without an attorney. 
 
 Fogle, who is being held in a federal correctional facility in Colorado, filed a motion Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana seeking to correct what he claims was a “clear error” in his case. That motion was filed “Pro Se,” a legal term meaning Fogle is taking the action on his own, rather than with the help of an attorney. 
 
 Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle, in a photo from 2002, displays the jeans he wore when he weighed 425 pounds. (Photo: Submitted by Subway) 
 
 Instead, it appears, Fogle is hoping for a break based on another motion filed in his case by an unrelated and unlikely party: Frank Edwin Pate, a Texas man serving a 17-year sentence for wire and mail fraud convictions at the same Colorado prison Fogle now calls home. 
 
 Pate was convicted of running a fraudulent foreign currency exchange scheme that bilked investors out of nearly $3 million, according to a statement from the FBI. It’s unclear what the connection is between Fogle and Pate — other than they are both locked up at the same place and the nearly identical styles and lay-outs of their respective legal briefs. 
 
 Fogle’s motion states he “’unequivocally’ asserts his right to ‘self-representation’” in the case that “has neither been raised by his prior legal advisor’s nor the District or Circuit courts.” 
 
 Basically, Fogle is now contending the federal court did not have the authority to try him for the crimes he ultimately pleaded guilty to committing. And to make that point, he cites a “friend of the court” brief Pate filed in September to call attention to the “clear and obvious error” regarding the court’s lack of “Subject Matter Jurisdiction.” 
 
 Pate’s 22-page motion claims the federal court has “taken control of (Fogle’s) liberty illegally.” It asks the court to issue a finding to support its jurisdiction, or “dismiss all charges, releasing (Fogle) from Federal custody.” 
 
 A federal judge denied Pate’s request without a hearing. 
 
 In his motion, Fogle asks the court to require prosecutors to file a response to Pate’s lack-of-jurisdiction claims, followed by a hearing and the issuance of a final decision “for the purpose of Appeals.” 
 
 A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana declined to comment on the recent filings by Fogle and Pate. 
 
 Contact Tim Evans at ()317) 444-6204 or tim.evans@indystar.com. And follow him on Twittter: @starwatchtim 
 
 Contact Mark Alesia at 317-444-6311 and follow him on Twitter: @markalesia. 
 
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 INDIANAPOLIS (CN) – A federal judge on Wednesday rejected an effort by Jared Fogle, the former face of Subway sandwiches, to overturn his conviction for traveling to engage in sex with a minor, filed on his behalf by a jailhouse lawyer. 
 
 Fellow inmate Frank Pate filed a motion for Fogle, claiming the court lacked jurisdiction over Fogle because of his status as a so-called “sovereign citizen.” 
 
 Pate is housed with Fogle at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution in Littleton, Colo. 
 
 A sovereign citizen is someone who believes they are not governed by authorities or subject to laws. 
 
 In a two-page ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Pratt rejected Fogle’s challenge. 
 
 “If Fogle is now claiming to be ‘sovereign,’ the Seventh Circuit has rejected theories of individual sovereignty, immunity from prosecution, and their ilk,” Pratt wrote. “Regardless of his theory, Fogle’s challenge of this court’s jurisdiction is rejected.” 
 
 Two years ago, Fogle entered a guilty plea to distributing or receiving child pornography and traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. The court sentenced him to 15 1/2 years in prison. 
 
 Fogle was charged with obtaining and looking at child pornography to “fuel his sexual fantasies involving children,” the Justice Department said at the time of sentencing, and he knew that the victims were under 18. 
 
 Prosecutors said that Fogle had traveled to New York to have sex with a 17-year-old girl and then returned two more times to the city to pay for sex with two other underage girls. 
 
 Fogle agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 victims in the case and forfeit $50,000 in assets. 
 
 Fogle became known as the “Subway Guy” and was a prominent fixture in ads for the fast food company for 15 years. He asserted that a diet of Subway sandwiches had led to his dramatic weight loss. 
 
 His conviction was affirmed by an appeals court last year. 
 
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– Ex-Subway pitchman Jared Fogle's pricey team of lawyers couldn't get him out of sex and child pornography convictions; neither, it seems, could Jared Fogle. The federal prison inmate learned on Wednesday that his effort to get those convictions overturned—via a Nov. 6 motion he filed "pro se," meaning he was representing himself—failed, and how. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana didn't mince words in rejecting the "frivolous" claim in a two-page ruling. It's a bit circuitous, but here's what he attempted: The Indianapolis Star reports that he tried to claim the federal court that he pleaded guilty in didn't actually have the authority to render a judgment against him. In an attempt to bolster his argument, he cited a "friend of the court brief" filed a couple of months ago by Frank Edwin Pate, a fellow inmate at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution in Littleton, Colo. As Courthouse News explains, Pate's motion claimed the court didn't have that authority because Fogle is a "sovereign citizen," meaning free from any government's laws. In his 22-page motion, Pate argued the federal court took "control of (Fogle's) liberty illegally" and requests that the court offer proof of its jurisdiction or dismiss the charges. Pratt's response to Fogle: "Federal courts have subject matter and personal jurisdiction over defendants brought before them on federal indictments alleging violations of federal law." She characterizes the "sovereign citizen defense" as "shop worn" and having "no conceivable validity in American law." (Fogle has been attacked while in prison.)