FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Josh Duggar, former director of the lobbying arm of the religiously motivated anti-porn Family Research Council, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for downloading child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
As XBIZ reported last December, Duggar was found guilty of the crimes by a federal jury in Arkansas.
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks handed down the sentence of 151 months at a courthouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the Los Angeles Times reported today.
Prior to his work for the Family Research Council, Duggar was known as a reality TV figure for his role on TLC’s "19 Kids and Counting," a show highlighting his extended family. TLC canceled the show in 2015 after it was revealed that Duggar had molested members of his family and a babysitter.
According to the Los Angeles Times, prosecutors had asked for the maximum sentence of 20 years due to “the sadistic nature of some of the material” Duggar had downloaded.
The sentencing memo by Assistant U.S. Atty. Dustin Roberts described Duggar — who actively campaigned against legal, consensual, adult pornography for the well-funded Family Research Council lobby — as having “a deep-seated, pervasive and violent sexual interest in children.”
The Arkansas trial also exposed the failure of for-profit, religiously inspired "porn filter" Covenant Eyes, a business highly ballyhooed by anti-porn crusaders trying to reroute state funds to bankroll private religious corporations to fight a supposed "public health crisis" around porn.
Last May, People magazine reported that federal investigators found that Covenant Eyes had been installed on Duggar's computer so that it could monitor and report his internet use to his wife, Anna.
"According to Covenant Eyes' website," People noted, "the program is an 'accountability software' that is meant to protect users from objectionable content and help monitor the screen activity of those with porn addictions. The software 'periodically captures screenshots,' which are then analyzed by artificial intelligence and sent to a trusted 'ally' who can hold the user accountable for their internet usage."
During a May 2021 detention hearing, however, an investigator reported that "Covenant Eyes was unable to detect Duggar's internet usage after a password-protected network was installed on his computer."