After hours of deliberation, former reality TV star Josh Duggar is found guilty on both charges of downloading and possessing child pornography.
Duggar, who starred on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” a show about a large family guided by conservative Christian values, was arrested in April and accused of using the internet to download child porn.
According to the Associated Press, the 33-year-old was convicted by a jury in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and taken into custody on Thursday, Dec. 9. He is now facing up to 20 years in prison, as well as fines up to $250,000 for each count.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks said sentencing would happen in about four months, Fayetteville TV station KNWA reported.
Duggar’s attorneys released a statement to Fox News shortly after the verdict, saying they intend to appeal. “We appreciate the jury’s lengthy deliberations, we respect the jury’s verdict, and we intend to appeal,” defense attorneys Justin Gelfand, Ian Murphy, and Travis Story said.
“19 Kids and Counting” was canceled in 2015 following revelations that Duggar had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter. Authorities began investigating the abuse in 2006 after receiving a tip from a family friend but concluded that the statute of limitations on any possible charges had.
Duggar’s parents said he had confessed to fondling and apologized. At the time, Duggar apologized publicly for unspecified behavior and resigned as a lobbyist for the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group.
Federal authorities said they began investigating after a Little Rock police detective found child porn files were being shared by a computer chased to Duggar. A federal agent testified in May that the images depicting the sexual abuse of children, including toddlers, were downloaded onto a 2019 computer at a car dealership Duggar owned.
The defense argued that someone else downloaded it or placed the child pornography onto the computer at Duggar’s workplace, noting that no child pornography was found on Dugger’s phone or laptop. But the jury was swayed.
Many of Duggar’s family members attended his trial over the last week.
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