Josh Duggar: Child porn stash in work computer had horrific video of girl aged 7-9 being raped
WASHINGTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS: The depraved details of Josh Duggar's child pornography stash has finally been exposed, months after the former reality star was arrested for downloading and possession of those deplorable content. Josh, who rose to fame from his family's TLC show called '19 Kids and Counting', was arrested on April 29. Cops had allegedly seized Josh's HP laptop from his office while raiding his Arkansas car dealership in 2019. Looking for illegal downloads, cops allegedly found child abuse material hidden deep inside a hard drive, with Josh's laptop-home screen being an innocent photo of his family - pregnant wife Anna Duggar and their six children.
Josh's arrest arrived just a week after he and his wife Anna shared the gender reveal of their soon to be arriving seventh baby. Josh had previously been nixed from their family reality show after an alleged police report from the past showed his father, Jim Bob Duggar admitting that his eldest son was guilty of molesting minor girls in their home, including his two sisters who were in their early teens then. After Josh's exit, TLC also canned the whole show, but immediately picked up a spinoff 'Counting On' featuring all the adult Duggar children and their individual families, but Josh never appeared on that even though his wife Anna did to talk about his alleged porn addiction and cheating scandal that he had ultimately confessed to.
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Josh Duggar was active on BitTorrent
Ever since his arrest on child pornography charges, Josh has maintained he's not guilty and was also granted bail. But in an exclusive released by Daily Mail, the outlet alleged that Josh's hard drive contained sickening images of prepubescent children engaging in sex acts. Revealed by federal prosecutors in a new filing, the two-year cyber sting that led to Josh's arrest began with his activity on BitTorrent - an online file-sharing network where users can search and download files from others while making their own available for the same.
It was Detective Amber Kalmer of the Little Rock Police Department who accessed the torrent network with specialist police software in 2019, as part of an undercover investigation to dig out perverts using the forum to trade such images of child abuse. The filing adds that Kalmer was able to unravel two files, one a zip folder with 65 image files of naked girls aged between seven and nine. Another was a two-minute video of a girl aged same, being raped by an adult man.
Sting op: Undercover agent visits Josh's car dealership
When Kalmer downloaded the files, she was able to identify its source as an IP address based in North Arkansas. She passed the info on to FBI Special Agent Gerald Faulkner, who specializes in investigating Internet crimes against children. Faulkner served a federal summons on the network Ozarks Go demanding the account details of the IP address they had clocked. The IP address then turned out to be a match with Josh's registered car dealership, Wholesale Motorcars, in Springdale. A Homeland Security undercover agent visited the car dealership in November 2019 pretending to be a customer. They spotted Josh using an iPhone and a computer. A month later, cops returned with a warrant to search the premises and seized Josh's devices.
"Agents encountered the defendant and two other men standing outside on the car lot," the filing details, reports Daily Mail. "Inside the small building on the lot, which operated as the business's main office, law enforcement located an HP Desktop Computer with an image of the defendant and his family on its screen. A subsequent forensic examination of that device and other devices seized from the defendant and the car lot pursuant to the warrant uncovered evidence demonstrating that the defendant used the HP Desktop to download from the internet and, subsequently, possess multiple files depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct."
Josh Duggar's charges and trial
Forensic evidence led a jury to charge Josh with two counts of downloading and possessing child pornography. The 33-year-old then spent a week in jail before he was bailed into home detention with an ankle monitor. Barred from returning to his family, Josh was asked to instead stay with LaCount Reber and his wife Maria, who agreed to keep their Internet pin-protected and also remove all firearms from the house. The couple is also required by law to tip off authorities if Josh breaches his bail conditions.
Josh's defense has been able to argue to push back his trial date until November demanding further evidence. They claim that apart from Kalmer, two more officers also downloaded material from Josh's IP address. The government insists they are not obligated to provide this information as the other two officers stumbled across Josh's stash during unrelated investigations of their own.
"The other officers who downloaded CSAM (child sexual abuse material) from the user of the defendant's IP address, as the United States has also already advised, played no part in the investigation of this case and did not provide the prosecution team with any materials related to their activity," prosecutors replies, said Daily Mail. They added: "The officers' downloads therefore in no way informed the magistrate judge's determination that there was probable cause to search his car lot, nor did they provide the basis for any of the charges in this case. In short, the information the defendant now seeks, to the extent it even exists, is immaterial to all aspects of this case. The Government has complied with and will continue to comply with all pertinent discovery obligations."