JOSH Duggar is blaming the child pornography photos and video found on his laptop on a car lot employee who admitted to “staying at the business overnight and watching adult porn."
Josh, 33, was arrested and charged with possessing and receiving child pornography in April.
On Friday, Josh’s legal team filed a court documents to have the case dismissed.
The Sun can exclusively reveal attorneys for the disgraced 19 Kids and Counting star filed a motion to dismiss the case because the government allegedly failed to “preserve potentially exculpatory evidence,” which is evidence favorable to a defendant that could exonerate him of the crime.
'PERSON OF INTEREST'
The court papers claim certain people had access to Josh’s used car lot Wholesale Motorcars’ wireless internet.
Though law enforcement searched the witnesses’ devices, they allegedly “failed to preserve any evidence obtained during these searches.”
The first witness interviewed on December 16, 2019 is described as a “person of interest.”
The court papers read: “Witness #1 admitted to investigators he worked at the Car Lot at various times and that, on several occasions, he even stayed at the Car Lot overnight without Duggar’s knowledge or permission.
“Witness #1 admitted to viewing adult pornography through websites he accessed through the internet on his cellular phone and, when asked by these federal agents, denied viewing child pornography.”
The witness’ cell phone was searched and no child pornography was found.
Authorities “preserved no evidence whatsoever from the search of Witness #1’s phone including its contents and metadata,” according to court papers.
The court docs then mention two more witnesses whose devices were examined.
Neither had criminal activity and “HSI preserved no evidence whatsoever from the search of Witness #3’s phone including its contents and metadata.”
The court papers continued: “Where the evidence the Government failed to preserve is potentially exculpatory, dismissal is mandated if the Government acted in bad faith in destroying or failing to preserve the potentially exculpatory evidence.”
Seeing the evidence is crucial for the defense, as they said of one example “the devices may have contained content as to whether these devices had any relevant internet search history, any evidence associated with the so-called ‘dark web’ and/or the Bit Torrent network, any metadata that might pinpoint the whereabouts of the devices at various dates and times, and the list goes on.”
The evidence could have “been searched by people with ‘expert skill’ in ‘a properly controlled environment,’” just as Josh’s devices were.
The documents alleged: “This Court should not permit the investigative agents to speak out of both sides of their mouth—to say imaging and preserving digital evidence is not necessary when it comes to one set of devices and to say imaging and preserving digital evidence is justified when it comes to another set of devices in the same investigation.”
Josh’s legal team calls this “troubling” and wrote “the Government concluded the three devices they searched did not further its case against Duggar and therefore deprived Duggar of the opportunity to access this potentially exculpatory evidence.
"Witness #1 even admitted to using his device to access adult pornography via the internet, but the Government failed to preserve the evidence of precisely how he accessed the pornography.”
Attorneys then slammed the government previously calling the case against Josh “straight-forward,” as “the case is not ‘straight-forward’ when the evidence is considered and the Government knows it.”
They are asking to dismiss the case and at minimum “have an evidentiary hearing to determine what can be determined based on the searches performed and to explore the possibility of alternative remedies.”
FIGHT OVER EVIDENCE
Josh’s legal team has been demanding more access to evidence throughout the case.
They filed a motion to see evidence related to “an undated screen shot” and “all law enforcement reports and related discovery prepared by the Little Rock” in July.
Josh’s first request was for “information that appears under the ‘Summary’ and ‘Investigative Activity’ tabs that are visible in the screen shot.”
In court papers previously obtained by The Sun, the judge found Josh failed to “show that he is entitled to the information contained in the two tabs appearing in the screen shot.”
Josh then requested “the production of the screen shot in ‘native format’ and the disclosure of the date and time of capture and the name of the individual who captured it.”
Because “native format” is “too vague to be understood” by the court, the motion was denied as well.
However, the request for the date, time and name of the person who captured the screen shot was granted.
The screen shot was not provided to the Court, but was indicated that three law enforcement officers “downloaded child sexual abuse material from the same IP address at around the same time on the same date, May 14, 2019.”
As for the police reports from the Arkansas Little Rock Police department, Josh’s team withdrew the request at the hearing.
Josh also requested logs from the Jonesboro and Ozark police departments, which was granted by the court.
Josh’s team argued that the logs can be "used to determine the type of hardware a file was allegedly downloaded from” and “could show whether those downloads were successful, whether there’s a pathway that’s reflected in there, how long it took, whether there was a disconnect and then a reconnect, and whether [the other two officers] were able to actually download the file in the first place.”
In Josh’s initial request, he claimed his legal team “repeatedly attempted to obtain this unambiguously discoverable evidence,” but the Government has “refused to produce this evidence.”
Josh’s team claimed he is “legally and constitutionally entitled to” the evidence, but “the government has flat-out refused to produce it.”
JOSH'S ARREST
As The Sun reported, Josh pleaded not guilty to the two child pornography counts.
Josh requested the court postpone his July trial date “in or after February 2022.”
The trial has been reset to November 30 and has the potential to last until December 3.
The former 19 Kids and Counting star is currently on home confinement until his trial and is living with third party custodians LaCount and Maria Reber, who are longtime friends of Jim Bob and Michelle.
Josh is residing in a massive mansion in Elkins, Arkansas with the Reber family.
The Arkansas judge on the case ordered Josh to wear a GPS ankle monitor.
Josh’s wife Anna, who is pregnant with their seventh child and due in the fall, is standing by her husband and has visited him with their children.
Josh has unlimited access to his children with Anna present.
The family’s reality show Counting On, which Josh has not appeared on, was canceled in light of the scandal.
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