Law & Crime reports:
Josh Duggar, the former “19 Kids and Counting” star and conservative activist who went on to be sentenced to federal prison for child pornography crimes, was denied a new trial by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Chief Judge Lavenski Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, along with U.S. Circuit Judges David Stras and Jonathan Kobes, both Donald Trump appointees, rejected Duggar’s arguments as to what was and wasn’t allowed into evidence at trial in Arkansas; it was Stras who penned the 11-page opinion.
At the outset, the judge made sure to note how Duggar initially reacted to a visit from feds with a search warrant: Duggar blurted out, “[w]hat is this about? Has somebody been downloading child pornography?” He then let it slip that he was “familiar with” file-sharing software and had installed it on “all of” his electronic devices, including “the computer in the office.”
Courthouse News reports:
Duggar, the oldest of the 19 kids on the TLC documentary program “19 Kids and Counting,” was convicted on two counts of possession of child pornography in late 2021 and sentenced to 151 months in prison in 2022.
Federal prosecutors charged Duggar after tracking downloads of hundreds of images of child pornography to a desktop computer in his used car dealership in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
During his trial, Duggar attempted to place the blame on a former employee who was also a convicted sex offender. But the former employee was not called to the stand, as U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks barred jurors from hearing about his previous conviction.
Conservative appellate panel refuses to give ex-’19 Kids and Counting’ star #JoshDuggar another chance to blame conviction on sex offender
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— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) August 8, 2023
