New court filings reveal at least three officers caught Counting On alum Josh Duggar downloading child pornography. All three cops downloaded file shares from Duggar’s computer, but two of the officers were never involved in court proceedings. The third cop provided the initial lead. Duggar is charged with two counts of receiving and possessing child pornography. Judge Timothy L. Brooks has scheduled the jury trial for the case for Nov. 30.
The issue of the other police officers comes up after Duggar’s team petitioned the court, asking the judge to push the government to hand over evidence that they claimed was being wrongly withheld from the defense. Federal prosecutors responded to the claims asserting that the information the defense team sought was either inexistent or irrelevant to the case. The documents show that Detective Amber Kalmer in Little Rock, Arkansas, used an officer tool to download the files directly from Duggar’s computer, which allegedly showed underage children as young as 12 years old performing sexual acts. Kalmer then sent the files to Special Agent Gerald Faulkner with Homeland Security Investigations, who traced the IP address back to Duggar’s used car dealership in Springdale.
From there, Faulkner obtained a warrant to search the dealership, and all computers and electronic devices inside the business were seized. Based on the evidence presented on all of the devices as well as other evidence obtained by detectives, a grand jury delivered a two-count indictment. The other officers named in court filings worked in a different department than Kalmer. The prosecution says neither of the two played any part in the prosecution’s case nor did they provide any information to the team outside of what was already given through Kalmer. The prosecutors claim they gave the defense several screenshots taken by the other two officers to show the defense that two other officers had seen what was on the computers at the time. Duggar is currently facing up to 20 years of imprisonment and fines up to $250,000 on each count, if convicted.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.