In a statement Friday, Subway said that it had received a “serious” complaint about company spokesman Jared Fogle, who agreed last month to plead guilty to allegations that he paid for sex with underage girls and had received child pornography, but that the complaint did not imply criminal sexual activity.

According to the Associated Press, in the statement Subway said that it reviewed more than a million online comments and interviews with past and present employees in the course of an internal investigation.

Subway spokeswoman Kristen McMahon confirmed that the company had received a “serious” complaint in 2011 from former journalist Rochelle Herman-Walrond. In July, Herman-Walrond told ABC affiliate WWSB that she approached the FBI after Fogle repeatedly told her “middle school girls are hot.”

The complaint “expressed concerns about Mr. Fogle,” McMahon told the AP, but included “nothing that implied anything about sexual behavior or criminal activity involving Mr. Fogle.” She declined the elaborate upon the nature of the complaint.

Subway regrets the complaint was “not properly escalated or acted upon,” the statement said. “It is important to note that the investigation found no further evidence of any other complaints of any kind regarding Mr. Fogle that were submitted to or shared with SUBWAY.”

Former Subway franchisee Cindy Mills said she alerted the company to Fogle’s criminal sexual conduct in 2008. Subway denies having any record of Mills’ complaint.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.