May 11, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — In 2015, the news broke that Josh Duggar, a member of the family that starred in the reality show 19 Kids and Counting, had been turned in to the police by his father Jim Bob after it was discovered that he had molested several young women, including his sisters. Later that same year, he confessed to cheating on his wife Anna after being caught on Ashley Madison, a website dedicated to facilitating adultery (motto: “Life is short — have an affair”).
He spent more than six months in a faith-based rehab center in Rockton, Illinois, after which his parents announced that they were “so thankful” for his “recovery and healing.” Duggar, who is 33, is expecting his seventh child — a girl — with his 32-year-old wife Anna.
Duggar had also admitted, at the time, to a porn addiction — and there has now been another horrifying development in this story. On April 29, he was arrested and taken into custody in Arkansas. On April 30, he was indicted and arraigned in court via Zoom on one count of the receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Gerald Faulkner noted that the child porn, which was downloaded using a peer-to-peer service at Duggar’s car dealership, was some of the “worst” he’d seen. He also stated that the material involved children between ages 18 months to 12 years of age.
Despite using Covenant Eyes software on his work computer to hold him accountable — the reports were sent to his wife Anna in order to ensure Duggar did not lapse back into porn addiction — he allegedly used a Linux partition, which hid his computer activity and allowed him to download videos depicting the sexual torture of children. Duggar, who pleaded not guilty, faces a maximum of twenty years in prison and $250,000 per charge.
His father offered to host Duggar until trial, which begins July 6 — he has been released elsewhere, and is forbidden to see his children without supervision as his charges involve the sexual abuse of children.
The judge ruled that since Duggar did not try to flee during the investigation, he was not a flight risk.
In response to the arrest and the news that Duggar has been released pending trial, victims’ advocate Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar of sexual abuse and author of What Is A Little Girl Worth? released a scathing statement to Twitter:
Denhollander’s searing analysis drives home once again the lackadaisical way in which many Christian communities treat pornography and sexual abuse, as well as the links between the two and how this behavior perpetuates abuse. The tragic and horrifying story of Josh Duggar forces us to reckon, once again, with the way we deal with such things — and should move us to act to protect vulnerable girls, women, and children. To remain silent — or to cover up these crimes — is to side with the wolves over the sheep.
