US reality star Josh Duggar gets family support amid child porn sentencing

American reality TV star Josh Duggar returned to the Western District of Arkansas Federal Courthouse in Fayetteville on Wednesday as he awaits sentencing for receiving and possessing child pornography, reported People magazine.

Members of the Duggar family, the focus of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, are also reportedly present at the courthouse, including Josh’s father, Jim Bob, his wife, Anna, and his siblings Joy-Anna (Duggar) Forsyth and Jason Duggar.

Prosecutors are seeking a maximum sentence for Duggar and his lawyers have asked the court in Fayetteville, about 140 miles (225 kilometres) northwest of Little eRock, to send him to prison for five years.

Duggar was arrested in April 2021 after a Little Rock police detective found child porn files were being shared by a computer traced to Duggar, reported The Associated Press.

Investigators testified that images depicting the sexual abuse of children, including toddlers, were downloaded in 2019 onto a computer at a car dealership Duggar owned.

TLC cancelled 19 Kids and Counting in 2015 following allegations that Duggar had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter years earlier.

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 expired.

Duggar’s parents said he had confessed to the fondling and apologized. After the allegations resurfaced in 2015, Duggar apologized publicly for unspecified behaviour and resigned as a lobbyist for the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group.

Months later, he publicly apologized for cheating on his wife and a pornography addiction, for which he then sought treatment.

In seeking a 20-year sentence, prosecutors cited the graphic images — and the ages of the children involved — as well as court testimony about the alleged abuse of Duggar’s sisters.

Duggar’s past behaviour “provides an alarming window into the extent of his sexual interest in children that the Court should consider at sentencing,” federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum.

Duggar has maintained that he’s innocent and that he intends to appeal, his attorneys wrote in their sentencing memorandum. - AP