Court documents filed in Arkansas allege that reality star Josh Duggar was placed on a sex offender registry following an accusation that he molested his sisters years before his arrest last spring on child pornography charges.
Duggar was never charged in 2006, but a 33-page police report uncovered by Touch Weekly in 2015 said his father, Jim Bob Duggar, told authorities the allegations were true, the UK tabloid The Sun reports.
After the release of the report, Duggar confessed to inappropriately touching his younger sisters when he was a teenager and entered rehab, as CrimeOnline reported. He was also accused of creating a private, paid Ashley Madison account, a social site made for people wanting to cheat on their significant other.
But he was arrested in April after a federal investigation found child porn on his electronic devices. His trial is set to begin in November, and he has pleaded not guilty. The TLC network said in June that it had no plans to film further season’s of Duggar’s “Counting On” series, the spin-off of the original Duggar family saga, “19 Kids and Counting.”
Duggar’s sisters sued the City of Springdale, In Touch owner Bauer Publishing, and others in May 2017, claiming that the release of the report was an invasion of privacy and caused “extreme mental anguish and emotional distress.”
The allegation that Duggar was placed on the sex offender registry comes in documents supporting a subpoena served on the Department of Human Services by the defendants last month.
“Joshua Duggar was placed on the sex offender registry and a legal proceeding was undertaken to remove Joshua Duggar from the sex offender registry,” the defendants say in a document opposing DHS’s motion to quash the subpoena, according to The Sun.
“The Defendants have a substantial and compelling need for the documentation in the possession of DHS. The Defendants are entitled to this information and documentation due to one of the central elements of Plaintiffs claims being public disclosure of private information.
“If Joshua Duggar was placed on the sex offender registry other information such as incest, molestation of family members, or other identifying information could have led to the disclosure of the information Plaintiffs claim was private and not known to the public.
“Additionally, correspondence between Joshua Duggar and/or his agents in the possession of DHS regarding his removal from the sex offender registry could provide information as to the public knowledge of Joshua Duggar’s acts of molestation and his victims.”
The response includes no evidence to support the claim.
The subpoena itself requests all “investigation files, records, documents, communications, reports, and information regarding or related to Joshua Duggar, Jim Bob Duggar, Michelle Duggar, Jill Dillard, Jessa Seewald, Jinger Vuolo, and Joy Forsyth or representatives or agents acting on behalf of those listen herein.”
Michelle Duggar is Josh Duggar’s mother; Jill, Jessa, Junger, and Joy are his sisters.
The Sun said that the YouTube channel Without a Crystal Ball was the first to report on the filing, but it is unclear if Duggar was placed on the register as alleged, since placement on a sex offender registry is usually the result of a conviction, and Duggar was not charged in 2006.
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[Featured image: Josh Duggar/Washington County Jail]
