Supreme Court Rejects Josh Duggar’s Appeal To Throw Out Conviction For Child Abuse Images

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Josh Duggar‘s request to consider throwing out his conviction for downloading images of child sexual abuse.

The reality television star known for his family’s TLC show 19 Kids and Counting was found guilty on one count of receiving child sexual abuse images in 2021, in which he downloaded onto a computer at the car dealership he owned. He was sentenced to 151 months in prison in 2022.

Duggar attorney Justin Gelfand told the Supreme Court the trial judge had excluded “relevant evidence of an alternative perpetrator” after keeping the defense from telling jurors about a prior sex offense by a former employee at the car dealership. 

“Mr. Duggar proffered to the district court concrete facts making clear that the potential that the crime had been committed by someone else was far from speculative,” Gelfand said in his petition. “Courts should trust juries to decide what is and is not pure speculation. But in this case, the judge – not the jury – made the ultimate decision.”

19 Kids and Counting was canceled in 2015 amid allegations that Duggar had molested four of his sisters and another girl in his teenage years. Duggar’s parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, said their son had made “terrible mistakes.” One of Duggar’s sisters, Amy, even gave up her last name after the allegations were revealed.

In a statement on her website, Duggar’s other sister, Jill, said, “Until now, he has yet to be held accountable to the extent necessary to cause change in his dangerous pattern of behavior.”