Josh Duggar's 12.5-year sentence for child pornography conviction extended by almost 8 weeks
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LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS: Josh Duggar’s 12-and-a-half-year prison sentence for child pornography conviction has been extended for almost two additional months, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
A federal jury in Arkansas found Duggar guilty in December 2021 on charges related to the receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography. On May 2022, he was sentenced to 151 months in prison. Originally, the reality star had a release date of August 12, 2032. Earlier this week, online prison records for Duggar obtained by the New York Post indicated that his release was pushed back until August 22, 2032. However, the records now cite his release date as October 2, 2032.
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'He had the option to speak to a lawyer'
The sentence extension comes as Duggar reportedly remains in solitary confinement, where he was placed after allegedly being caught last month with a contraband cellphone. He was transferred from Washington County Jail in his home state of Arkansas to FCI Seagoville in Texas on June 2022.
Duggar was arrested in April 2021 after a Little Rock, Arkansas, police detective found child pornography files being shared by a computer traced to Duggar. Investigators testified that images depicting the sexual abuse of children were downloaded in 2019 onto a computer at a dealership he owned.
Prosecutors said that the computer Duggar used had a monitoring program on it to report his activities to his wife, Anna Duggar, but the images and video were downloaded after separate software was installed that would allow him to download items without being detected.
Additionally, in relation to the cellphone being found with Duggar inside the prison, prosecutors said that Duggar was free to leave the scene and instructed not to speak with agents without an attorney, and he was also with two other people whose cellphones weren’t seized, indicating that "he had the option to speak to a lawyer even though obviously the officers had appropriately seized the phone at the outset of their search."
Duggar's lawyer, Justin Gelfand, argued that investigators violated his rights by seizing the phone he was using to try to call his lawyer during the search that found the images. According to a report by MSN, he said, "What federal agents did is they physically took the phone out of his hand, and from that point forward, they deprived him of the ability to communicate with his legal counsel, as was his constitutional right."
Josh Duggar molested his own sisters
Even though, the '19 Kids and Counting' star was arrested for this particular case. There were several allegations against him. Back in 2006, authorities received a tip from a family friend accusing Duggar of molesting four of his sisters and a babysitter years earlier. However, the investigation ended after it was concluded that the statute of limitations had passed on any possible charges.