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Josh Duggar wants to have his day in court.
Again.
The former TLC reality star, who was convicted on multiple child sex abuse charges last month, has officially filed his appeal.
According to paperwork filed this week, Duggar has requested a new trial, as he attempts to blame a former employee for the illicit videos and photos found on his work computer back in 2019.
The court documents claim that the government “failed to adduce any evidence that Duggar knew that the visual depictions were of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” a necessary element for conviction of each count.
Put more simply?
Duggar’s defense team is arguing that its client was unaware he was watching child porn.. if he was watching it at all.
“The evidence at trial established that certain files allegedly found on the HP desktop computer were never viewed by any user of the computer and that all the files at issue had been deleted shortly after being downloaded,” continues the appeal.
“The jury had no evidence that Duggar personally viewed any specific portion of any of the files allegedly found on the computer.”
In this instance, the defense is granting that, yes, inappropriate and illegal files may have been downloaded to Josh’s computer just under two years ago.
But no one can prove thhat Duggar actually viewed them.
A jury of Josh’s peers, of course, disagreed with this analysis on December 9.
After approximately two days of deliberation, Josh was found guilty, handcuffed in court and immediately placed behind bars, where he’s currenlty awaiting his sentencing.
Elsewhere in the defense lawyers’ filing, Duggars attorneys allege they were unfairly prevented from calling a “necessary witness” during the seven-day trial.
This witness was an individual who had worked at Duggar’s used car lot in Springdale, Arkansas, the location where federal authorities all of the graphic sex material.
Duggar’s attorneys wrote in their motion that the former employee — who was also a registered sex offender — had “regularly used the desktop computer in the months and weeks leading up to May 2019.”
This unnamed male was previously by federal authorities and prosecutors, telling authorities that he wasn’t in the office between May 14 and May 16, 2019… when these files were actually downloaded.
HOWEVER, Duggar is now saying that this guy sent an “unsolicited email” to a prosecutor shortly before the trial.
The email stated that the former employee had been “completely mistaken” when he told investigators he had not been at Duggar’s used car lot, according to the motion.
While Duggar’s attorneys acknowledge that the ex-employee hoped his email would “establish that he was not at the car lot on certain dates in question,” they accused prosecutors of improperly concealing the message until mere days before Duggar’s trial started.
“In this case, Duggar was deprived of materially exculpatory evidence until the evening before the Government rested its case,” reads the just-filled paperwork
Duggar has been incarcerated in the Washington County Jail since his December conviction.
He’s in solitary confinement, faces up to 40 years in prison and has scarcely had any contact with any family members over the past six weeks outside of his wife, Anna.
Despite all Josh had done to her, Anna continues to keep up contact with the father of her seven kids.
A bulk of of Duggar’s defense strategy revolved around the theory that Duggar was not the only person with access to the HP desktop inside his used car lot.
During the trial, Duggar’s defense team emphasized that no child sexual abuse material was ever found on Duggar’s personal devices, including his phone and laptop.
Conversely, along with providing technical evidence of the downloads in question and connection them to Josh and his workplace, prosecutors called a long-time family friends to the stand.
She testified in detail to Duggar’s history of molestation, telling the jury how she learned Josh had fondled a five-year old why the girl sat on his lap… reading the bible.
Three days later, Josh was found guilty.
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