- Josh Duggar is trying to overturn his child-pornography conviction.
- In a Thursday hearing, his lawyers said the child porn could have come from one of his former friends.
- That former friend told Insider the accusations are “very hurtful,” and he hopes Duggar receives professional help.
Josh Duggar, who was convicted in 2021 of downloading child pornography, is trying to pin the crime on one of his former friends.
Duggar, 34, is currently serving a 12.5-year sentence in a Texas prison while he tries to overturn his conviction.
In a federal appeals court hearing Thursday, a lawyer representing the former reality TV star speculated that the child sexual abuse material could have been downloaded by a man named Caleb Williams, who occasionally worked in the used car dealership where the download happened.
Duggar’s attorney said prosecutors had “failed to prove Mr. Duggar guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by failing to rule out Mr. Williams as an alternative perpetrator.” He said the court should have admitted evidence that Williams had access to the computer where the child sexual abuse material was downloaded.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Duggar had personally downloaded hundreds of pieces of child sexual abuse material to his office desktop computer in Springdale, Arkansas, and that he went to great lengths to evade detection. The material Duggar downloaded involved children under the age of 12, including one as young as an infant.
Computer forensics experts testified at trial that Duggar had essentially hidden the illicit material by splitting his computer’s hard drive into two parts: one public-facing component using a Windows operating system, and one private component hidden behind a Linux partition. The partitioned component helped Duggar evade the anti-porn “accountability software” that reported his internet activity to his wife, according to prosecutors.
During Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors argued there was no way Williams could have been responsible for downloading the child sexual abuse material.
Williams was in a different state on the dates that the child sexual abuse material was downloaded and on the date that the Linux partition was installed. The latter task would have required Williams to be physically present at the computer in Arkansas, prosecutors said.
Williams told Insider in an interview that he was blindsided by the Duggar team’s attempts to blame him for the child sexual abuse material at trial. Williams said it’s true that he’d had access to the computer at Duggar’s car lot — but so did many others. Beyond that, he said, he gave prosecutors proof that he was traveling across Missouri during the time of Duggar’s conduct in May 2019, including a receipt from a St. Louis Apple store.
Williams said he felt Duggar’s team has been trying to use him as a scapegoat, and targeted him specifically because Williams has previously been convicted of sexual offenses. Court records show that Williams pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual assault of a minor, and was sentenced to 62 days in jail in 2020.
“I’m frustrated. I’m hurt. It is very hurtful. And I sometimes have to check myself and not be angry,” Williams said, adding that he hopes Duggar receives professional help for his “sexually deviant” behavior.
“But I’m not gonna sit there and let him control my life either,” he said. “He did some pretty bad things.”
Duggar’s team also argued on Thursday that the child pornography conviction should be overturned because federal agents executing the search warrant of the car dealership in 2019 deprived Duggar of his right to speak with his lawyer by physically taking his phone from his hand.
During the search warrant execution, Duggar answered multiple questions from the federal agents, at one point asking whether someone had been downloading child pornography at the scene — a comment which was used against him at trial.
Prosecutors have said Duggar was explicitly told he was free to leave the scene and was not obligated to speak to the agents, but did so voluntarily.
It’s unclear when the appeals court panel, comprised of three judges, will rule on Duggar’s bid to overturn his conviction.
