Josh Duggar Loses SCOTUS Appeal to Throw Out Child Porn Conviction

Washington County Detention Center via AP, File

Josh Duggar, who became famous for being part of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, was denied an appeal by the Supreme Court on Monday as he attempted to overturn his conviction on child porn.

The disgraced reality star was convicted in late 2021 and sentenced to 151 months in prison for receiving and possessing child pornography. In his appeal, Duggar claimed that a former colleague with a sex-offense conviction was actually the one responsible for the illegal materials on his computer. The illicit content was discovered by federal agents in 2019 while they executed a search warrant at a car dealership owned by Duggar.

Duggar’s lawyers maintained their client’s innocence and pledged to appeal the conviction, which they did. During that process, “the trial court declined to allow Duggar to introduce the prior conviction as evidence unless he could first establish that the employee had access to the computer,” according to CNN. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. The Supreme Court declined to hear Duggar’s appeal.

The child porn conviction was only one element of Duggar’s downfall as a prominent Christian conservative figure. In 2015, he was the first celebrity name revealed in the Ashley Madison hack; Duggar had two accounts at the site where married people sought extramarital affairs. Before that, he was forced to resign from his position at the conservative Family Research Council when he publicly admitted to molesting several young girls. The snowballing legal troubles led to the cancellation of 19 Kids and Counting. Two of Duggar’s sisters were featured in their own documentary series in 2023 where they exposed more troubles behind their devout Christian family.