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Josh Duggar’s Prison Sentence For Child Porn Extended, Reportedly After He Was Caught With A Cellphone
Josh Duggar, who appeared with his family on the TLC reality show "19 Kids and Counting" and was convicted on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography, had another two months added to his prison sentence.
Josh Duggar, who appeared with his family on the TLC reality show "19 Kids and Counting" and was convicted on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography, had another two months added to his prison sentence.
That's on top of the 12-and-a-half-year sentence he was handed down on May 25, 2022, after being found guilty of those charges five months earlier. The website for the Federal Bureau of Prisons website currently lists Duggar's release date as Oct. 2, 2032, but Insider reports that his original prison release date was Aug. 12, 2032, and that prison records showed an updated date to read Aug. 22, 2032 earlier this week.
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The extended sentence comes after tabloids like The Sun reported last month that Duggar, who's 35, was taken to solitary confinement after authorities found him trying to sneak a cellphone into prison, according to Law & Crime. The outlet reported that obtaining a cellphone would have especially alarmed authorities due to the crimes the former reality show star was convicted of.
The government had said they'd found more than 600 illicit images on Duggar’s work computer, though the number was disputed by his lawyers, according to Law & Crime. The charges he was convicted of included receiving possessing child pornography showing the abuse of victims as young as toddler-aged.
One video reportedly featured the sexual assault of an 18-month old. Prosecutors had said that Duggar went out of his way to conceal the illegal content, since his work computer was outfitted with anti-porn software that was installed after data hacked from the Ashley Madison website exposed him as pursuing affairs during his marriage.
Duggar got around this by installing a Linux partition on the device, and then viewing the sex abuse videos and images through encryption, according to Law & Crime. He was also allegedly able to cover up what he was viewing and downloading by using other programs.
Before the convictions, Duggar, a Christian activist, was the center of other scandals, including allegations that he sexually molested several of his sisters when all parties were minors. Duggar later apologized for “wrongdoing” after those allegations were exposed.
Last month, lawyers for Duggar — who has maintained his innocence in the child porn possession charges, claiming that someone else must have downloaded the illicit files — asked a federal appeals court for a new trial, hoping to have his convictions overturned.
Duggar's attorney Justin Gelfand told a three-judge panel on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 16 that while authorities searched his Arkansas car dealership in 2019 for his devices, he was "interrogated outside the presence of his attorney after law enforcement had physically taken his phone from his hand when he was attempting to contact his counsel," FOX affiliate KNWA reported.
That appeals court said it would "take the case under advisement," without giving an expected date for their decision.
Duggar is serving his sentence at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Seagoville, a suburb of Dallas.
