***Update***: This site’s headline originally said Josh Duggar faced 20 years in prison. In fact, it’s 20 years for each count. 40 years total. Apologies for the error!
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It wasn’t about a shady real estate deal or tax fraud after all.
Josh Duggar, the Christian reality TV star best known for molesting his younger sisters, was arrested yesterday for exactly the reason everyone feared: Receipt and possession of child pornography.
According to the indictment released publicly today, a Grand Jury agreed that Duggar, in 2019, “knowingly possessed material that contained images of child pornography… including images of minors under the age of 12.”
Duggar faces up to 40 years in prison — or as some on Twitter wryly joked, “19 years and counting.” He pleaded not guilty to both charges.
The family responded with a short statement to Us Weekly that doesn’t deny anything.
The accusations brought against Joshua today are very serious. It is our prayer that the truth, no matter what it is, will come to light, and that this will all be resolved in a timely manner. We love Josh and Anna and continue to pray for their family.
I should point out that while the Department of Justice’s tweet pointing to the charges remains up, the press release with the details has been taken down from their website. It’s not clear why.
Making matters even worse, we learned last week that Duggar was expecting his seventh child with his wife Anna.
His actions appear to finally be catching up with him. Charges were never filed against Duggar, one of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting” and the former Executive Director of Family Research Council’s FRC Action, after we learned in 2015 that he had been accused of the “forcible fondling” of four of his sisters and another girl (all underage) several years earlier. Subsequent reporting confirmed the allegations and the show was eventually canceled, though some spinoffs with other Duggar children continued to air.
Duggar also checked into a Christian rehab center months later after an adult film star said he had paid her for “rough sex.”
Here’s the biggest kicker of them all: In 2014, his mother Michelle Duggar was the voice of a robocall that went out to voters in Fayetteville, Arkansas about a proposed LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinance. She urged people to contact local officials so that they would vote against it. Her reasoning? Trans people would hurt their kids.
Hello, this is Michelle Duggar. I’m calling to inform you of some shocking news that would affect the safety of Northwest Arkansas women and children. The Fayetteville City Council is voting on an ordinance this Tuesday night that would allow men — yes, I said men — to use women’s and girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas and other areas that are designated for females only.
I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls. I doubt that Fayetteville parents would stand for a law that would endanger their daughters or allow them to be traumatized by a man joining them in their private space. We should never place the preference of an adult over the safety and innocence of a child.
Turns out the biggest threat to children wasn’t a transgender person at all. It was her own son whom she raised with conservative Christian “values.”
How’s that for irony? A member of the nation’s most famous “quiverfull” family could be found guilty of a crime that would prevent him from being around children.
Looks like the family’s biggest critics were right about him all along.
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