Joseph Duggar of reality show 19 Kids And Counting faces child sex abuse charges
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Joseph (left) and Kendra Duggar from 19 Kids And Counting.
PHOTO: LITTLEDUGGARFAMILY/INSTAGRAM
Hannah Ziegler and Claire Fahy
NEW YORK – Joseph Duggar, a former star of the hit TLC reality series 19 Kids And Counting (2008 to 2015), which followed a large Arkansas family guided by conservative Christian values, was arrested on March 18 on charges accusing him of molesting a nine-year-old girl in Florida, the United States, in 2020, the authorities said.
The sheriff’s office in Bay County, Florida, said in a statement that Duggar, 31, repeatedly engaged in “unlawful sexual activity” with the girl in Panama City Beach, Florida, that year.
The girl, who is now 14, reported the sexual assault on March 18 to the police in Tontitown, Arkansas, according to a statement from that department. Investigators determined that the assault happened in Bay County and informed the sheriff’s office, which issued a warrant for Duggar’s arrest.
The girl told investigators that Duggar “eventually apologised for his actions and the incidents stopped after the apology”, the Bay County sheriff’s office said in its statement.
Duggar was charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim less than 12 years old, and with lewd and lascivious behaviour conducted by a person 18 years or older. He is awaiting extradition to Bay County.
His wife Kendra Duggar, 27, was arrested on child endangerment charges after him, Tontitown police said on March 20. She was charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and four counts of false imprisonment.
She was released on a US$1,470 (S$1,885) bond from the Washington County Detention Center on March 20 evening, while he remained in custody. It was not immediately clear if either of them had legal representation.
She was featured in a spin-off of 19 Kids And Counting called Counting On (2015 to 2020), which followed the lives of the Duggar children from the first series as they started families of their own.
Kendra and Joseph Duggar met and got married in 2017, when she was 19 and he was 23. They have four children: two girls aged six and five, and two boys aged seven and three.
Joseph Duggar starred with his siblings and parents in 19 Kids And Counting, which followed the lives of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 19 children over more than 200 episodes. The series was among TLC’s top-performing shows during its 10-season run.
TLC pulled the show from the air in 2015 after allegations surfaced that the oldest Duggar child Josh, now 38, had molested several girls when he was a teenager.
No criminal charges resulted from the allegations, but the Duggar parents told Fox News in 2015 that four of the five girls Josh Duggar had molested were his sisters.
In 2022, Josh Duggar was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for downloading child sexual abuse imagery after a closely watched trial in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Prosecutors said that the eldest Duggar son downloaded around 600 photographs and seven videos of violent child sexual abuse, according to a sentencing memorandum.
A jury found him guilty in December 2021 of one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. A judge later vacated the possession charge.
Several members of the Duggar family have publicly distanced themselves from their parents and Josh Duggar since his initial arrest in 2021. NYTIMES
