Josh Duggar's Prosecutors Want His Social Media Posts About Porn Addiction Put In Evidence

A former reality star who took to social media to address allegations of extramarital affairs may see those statements used against him at his federal child pornography trial.

Josh Duggar, 33, one of the now-grown children who appeared on the TLC show "19 Kids and Counting" who later worked as a lobbyist for the conservative Family Research Council's political action arm while the show was on the air, was arrested in April 20201 on one federal felony charge of receiving child pornography and one federal felony charge of possessing child pornography. He is scheduled to go to trial on Nov. 30.

In a new motion in the case, prosecutors argue that Duggar's 2015 statements on social media addressing what he then admitted was his long-term, prolific use of (what was then believed to be legal, adult) pornography should be allowed at his trial on the child pornography charges. 

The original statement, made on Facebook in August 2015 after his profile on the extramarital affair site Ashley Madison was leaked, said in part: "I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife."

"I brought hurt and a reproach to my family, close friends and the fans of our show with my actions that happened when I was 14-15 years old, and now I have re-broken their trust," it continued. The latter part was an apparent reference to the release by In Touch of a heavily redacted police report earlier that year that alleged Duggar had committed acts of child molestation as a teen against five girls. (He was never charged, though two of his sisters later revealed that they were among the children allegedly victimized by him.)

According to CNN, the reference to pornography in the statement was later redacted. Several days after the statement, the family told the media that Duggar was in a rehabilitation program, though they did not specify for what.

Prosecutors have two reasons for believing the court should allow them to admit Duggar's 2015 statements: first, that they are either a free admission against self-interest or a statement of motive; and second, that they are necessary to explain some of the other physical evidence to be presented at trial.

That physical evidence is that the computer on which Duggar's child pornography was found — an HP desktop running Windows, used at his car dealership — contained both an anti-porn program known as Covenant Eyes (which was designed to alert his wife, Anna, if he was searching for or accessing pornography) and a partitioned hard drive. That hard drive partition was running the open source operating system Linux instead of Windows, the "dark web" browser known as Tor and a program that allowed Duggar to download files sent directly to him by other people, prosecutors say. Covenant Eyes is not compatible with Linux.

Prosecutors say they plan to present evidence that Duggar created the partition — which is not a simple computer task — and then installed Linux and the Tor browner on May 13, 2019. The following day, they say, he utilized the partitioned part of his hard drive to seek out what they termed Child Sexual Abuse Material, and then downloaded the third program to download said material.

Among the material that Homeland Security agents allegedly found on Duggar's computer in 2019 — which they testified included sexually explicit material depicting the rape and sexual abuse of children ages 18 months to 12 years — was a graphic video depicting the sexual abuse of an 18-month-old created by notorious Australian pedophile and alleged murderer Peter Scully. An agent called the video the "Top five worst of the worst" material he's ever seen.

As a condition of his bail, Fox News reports that Duggar is  living with family friends in Arkansas. He is not allowed contact with minors outside of his children, and can only have visitation with them if he wife is present. He also was prohibited from using any internet-accessible devices before trial.