Josh Duggar downloaded 65 images of naked girl, 7, with exposed genitals in dog kennel
Trigger Warning: Child sex abuse, child pornography
After jury selection in Josh Duggar's child porn case on November 30, the prosecution and defense made their opening statements on Wednesday, December 1. It was stated that Duggar used his work laptop to download disturbing child pornography files on them, some of which were titled 'Daisy's Destruction', 'Playtoy Sweetie', and 'Pedo Mom'. The prosecution described the morally degrading discoveries at the federal courthouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He was arrested on April 29 this year and was indicted by a grand jury alleging that he knowingly received child porn files. In mid-May, investigators found a stockpile of disturbing images and videos including that of two girls, aged seven and nine, being "penetrated" by an adult male. Another bulk download featured 65 images of a girl, aged seven, posing nude, exposing her genitals, and then being put in a dog kennel, the prosecution alleged.
Duggar's family members were present in court including his sister Jill Dillard and brother Jedidiah. Dillard's husband Derick was present too and sat on the bench registered for family members of the accused along, sitting next to Duggar's wife Anna. The latter gave birth to her seventh child, a daughter in October. She maintains she is "happily married" and continues standing with her husband who has a history of problematic behavior. He had confessed to having touched minor girls over and under their clothing as a 14-15-year-old, and four of his victims were his sisters. Duggar family patriarch Jim Bob had consulted the church after he made the alleged confession after which he was enrolled in a program.
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Roberts issued a word of caution for the 12 jurors in court saying "Throughout this trial you are going to see images of children, not actors, some as young as seven. These children were being sexually abused, violated and exploited." Dillard and Jedidiah have been named in the list of potential or confirmed witnesses in court, a day before opening statements were delivered. Roberts told the court that Duggar exercised caution while making these downloads on his HP laptop from BitTorrent by using encrypted file-sharing software. "We urge you to hold him accountable," Roberts told the jurors and four alternates, some of whom looked away for a few seconds after being disgusted while they were discreetly viewing material from the laptop at a later point during the proceedings.
Duggar is charged with two counts of receiving and possessing child pornography. If convicted he could face 20 years in jail and fines up to $250,000 for each count. He was nabbed after Detective Amber Kalmer of Little Rock Police Department used a specialist police program called Torrential Downpour as part of an undercover online investigation to close in on perverts who traded child porn on the internet. Duggar's defense argued multiple people had access to the computer he was using and also said the Feds had initially traced the IP address to a house near Duggar's workplace. "This is not Josh Duggar's house, this is the not the reality star we are excited to investigate," Justin Gelfland told jurors. "So they did not investigate the house," he said describing his client as a Mac guy who lacked the technological sophistication required to install programs on a Windows computer.