LIVE UPDATES From Josh Duggar’s Child Sex Abuse Materials Trial: Day 6

Josh Duggar is back in court for the sixth day of his federal trial.

The Josh Duggar Child Sex Abuse Materials trial continues today, Tuesday. Now in its second full week, the defense will now present its witnesses, as the prosecution rested on Monday.

The Ashley— who has been in the Arkansas courtroom covering the trial— has been bringing you live updates from the trial and will continue to do so below. ( Click here and here to read coverage from the first few days of court.)

Trigger warning: the following may contain descriptions of child sex abuse materials and other disturbing details.

To catch up on what happened in court on Monday, click here.

The members of the Duggar Family who are present in court today include:

  • Anna Duggar, Josh’s ever-loyal wife, is back in court, just as she has been every day of the trial. 
  • Jim Bob Duggar is present for the first time during the trial. As The Ashley previously reported, Jim Bob was legally obligated to testify at Josh’s pre-trial hearing last week. He (and his “selective lapse in memory” had not appeared in court since. Jim Bob sat a few rows behind Anna and other Duggar family members, as he showed up about 20 minutes late. According to The Sun‘s reporter, Jim Bob was “expressionless and just listened to the evidence, looking up when evidence was presented on screen.”
  • Jana Duggar (the oldest of the Duggar sisters) She sat next to Anna in the front row of the galley, according to The Sun‘s in-court reporter. At one point, Jed and Josh had a laugh together.
  • Austin Forsyth is back again. Austin has been in attendance every day of the trial, usually with his wife, Joy Duggar Forsyth. (Joy appeared later in the day.) Austin sat next to Jim Bob.
  • David Keller (Anna’s brother) and Hannah Reber (the daughter of Josh’s court custodian’s) appeared in court for the first time. David and Hannah recently married.
  • Derick Dillard is back. He has been in attendance every day of the trial. He usually takes notes during the testimony and sits near Anna in the family row. 
  • Jason Duggar is back in court. (He was identified mistakenly as Jed Duggar. The Ashley regrets the error.) 
  • Laura DeMaise, Jana’s best friend is also in attendance today. She first appeared on Monday.
Tuesday marked the first day of the trial that Jana and Jim Bob Duggar attended court.

UPDATE 1:

  • Court began today with the prosecution cross-examining Michele Bush, an Arizona-based digital forensics expert who has examined the devices seized from Josh Duggar. As The Ashley previously reported, yesterday Michele made statements that contradicted the statements made by James Fottrell of the Department of Justice Child Exploitation, who was a witness for the prosecution. Michele claimed that the router in Josh’s office was “extremely important” to the case, and should have been seized with the other devices but wasn’t.
  • According to KNWA, Michele has been cross-examined by the prosecution for an hour-and-a-half, with most of that time chipping away at her credibility and “expertise” in the field. She admitted that she has never taken a course specific about Linux, which is the type of partition used on Josh’s computer that contained the CSA materials.
  • KNWA‘s in-court reporter tweeted that Michele “embellished her experience in yesterday’s testimony, including time as a college undergrad in her years of forensic examination experience. Bush graduated from the University of Arizona in 2015.” She had previously told the court that she had “ten years experience” as a forensic examiner. However, 10 years ago she was found to be a college student. 
  • Michele had previously testified that she had testified in federal court “many times” as an expert witness. Upon questioning by the prosecution, she admitted that this may be the first time she has ever testified as an expert witness, according to KNWA.
  • The Sun states that Michele admitted she had never seen photos of Josh’s actual HP desktop computer (where all the CSA materials were found), and had only seen pictures of the router. She also admitted to never listening to the audio recording of Josh’s interview with the special agents on the day of the car lot raid in 2019 because she “wanted to focus on the forensics.”

UPDATE 2:

  • Next, the prosecution attorney William Clayman focused on Michele’s statements from yesterday in which she stated that the partition could be booted up remotely. During cross-exam, Michele admitted that, because of the thumb drive being used, it “appeared” that physical access to the computer was needed after all, and that it could not be booted up remotely. She admitted that “the evidence told her someone needed to be there to physically plug it in,” The Sun reports
  • The prosecution continues to tear apart Michele’s testimony from yesterday. When asked if someone viewed files from a webcam collection zip file, she confirmed that the files were extracted and the folder was opened. She also admitted that the CSA movies she stated were “streamed” were, in fact, viewed. Prosecutor Clayman also brought up Michele’s own report, which states that five torrent files of CSA movies were downloaded, and that one file was viewed for three minutes. She admitted that she never viewed the files found in that folder though.
  • She also admitted to never viewing a video she testified about yesterday. (During yesterday’s testimony, Michele stated that this particular video was deleted 29 seconds after downloading. Today, she admitted that no CSA was visible for the first 29 seconds of that video. However, she never viewed it.) 
  • Other interesting tidbits from the prosecution’s cross-exam of Michele include the fact that she confirmed someone would have had to physically been there to plug  the thumbnail into the computer. She also confirmed that some of the info in her 100-page report came from the court testimony of James Fottrell, the prosecution’s witness, according to KNWA.

UPDATE 3: 

  • Remote access continues to be a suggestion of the defense. During defense’s cross-exam of Michele, she stated the computer on Josh’s car lot was “vulnerable” and that, based on her analysis there was the ability for someone to access or control it remotely, from anywhere in the world. The Sun reports that Michele testified that it’s “probable” remote access happened. She states this due to how small the partition with the CSA materials was, the fact that the CSA videos were streamed and that the username to the partition with CSA stuff on it seems to have no real relevance to Josh. She again brought up the router, which she claims she needs in order to totally determine whether or not remote access occurred her.   
  • Michele also discussed the password “Intel1988” which was the password used to access the partition with the CSA materials on Josh’s computer. Michele confirmed that an email from 2014 stated that this password was used to run the Duggar Family’s Twitter account.
  • Next discussed was a photo that shows the images of someone in a red hat being reflected in computer screen in the picture. Prosecutor Clayman asked Michele if Josh’s iPhone took that photo, but Michele stated she wasn’t sure.  

UPDATE 4: 

  • KNWA reports that the defense called Daniel Wilcox, who was a former Homeland Security Investigator and police officer in Rogers, Arkansas. He was involved in executing the search warrant at Josh’s car lot, as well as the undercover investigation associated with it. 
  • Daniel stated that, as part of his undercover investigation, he pretended to be a customer interested in purchasing a car from Josh’s Wholesale Motorcars. He testified that he called the car lot to see if Josh was there and/or associated with the business. He then left a message and stated that Josh arranged for a time for them to meet at the car lot to discuss the car. However, he stated that when he arrived at the car lot, employee Randall Berry told him Josh was busy. Daniel said he left because he had failed to meet Josh as planned.

  • He later went back to the car lot where he finally met Josh (along with Randall again) and they had a discussion either October 31, 2019 or November 1, 2019, according to The Sun.
  • The prosecution didn’t spend much time with Daniel. He basically pointed out that the only thing this witness confirmed was that Josh had been at the car lot. 

UPDATE 4: 

  • The defense rested its case, which was surprising, given that it had only called two witnesses. James Fottrell is being brought back to the stand by the prosecution.
  • James again went over how to install the Linux partition, as well as how to download uTorrent and the VLC player (both of which were used to access/view the CSA materials on Josh’s computer) from the SnapStore. He proved that no “command lines” are needed, as Michele Bush previously stated. 
  • The defense then cross-examined James. He basically tried to point out that the uTorrent software James had used to show how to do these actions did not exist in 2019 (when Josh is accused of doing this.) The software James used did not exist until May 2019. 
  • The defense once again brought up the router (which wasn’t seized from Josh’s office.) James again stated that it wasn’t important. (The Sun reports that Jim Bob shook his head in disagreement when James made this statement.) 
  • Josh’s defense attorney pointed out that, if plug-and-play is occurring, streaming would go through the router. This means it would have access to videos. James admitted that there is a “remote possibility” that remote access could have occurred, especially if plug-and-play was involved.  
  • James once again answered the question: who could he determined was in the office with the computer close to the time when the CSA materials were downloaded every time. James stated again that it was “Joshua Duggar.”

UPDATE 5: 

  • The Sun‘s in-court reporter noted that Jim Bob made his way to the front row during break to hug Anna. He then sat in the front row. Derick, who has been in court every day sitting near Anna, had an “awkward” exchange with Jim Bob. (As The Ashley has reported, Derick has been in a feud with Jim Bob for years. After Jim Bob moved to the front row, Derick moved to a different row that contained some of the Duggar siblings. 
“Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more awkward…here we are…”

UPDATE 6: 

  • Prosecution and defense have rest their rebuttals and court has adjourned for the evening. Tomorrow (Wednesday), each side will present their closing arguments. From there, it will go to the jury for deliberations. 

UPDATE 7: 

  • Bobeye Holt, who, along with her husband Jim testified for the prosecution on Monday, posted a telling message on Facebook on Tuesday while the trial was going on. “Mercy for the guilty is cruelty to the innocent,” she wrote, tagging her husband in the post. (As The Ashley previously reported, Bobye testified about the molestations Josh committed when he was a teen. His victims included four of his sisters and another girl. (The youngest victim was five years old, and was the main topic of Bobye’s testimony.) 

(Photos: Instagram; TLC; The Ashley’s Reality Roundup)

27 Comments

  1. So Josh’s defense team needed all that extra time for that stellar (ha ha) performance? Or did they want it delayed to give Josh the chance to see the birth it and meet his last kid before he nexts sees her in college??!!


  2. This isn’t going to end with this jury’s deliberation. If Josh is found not guilty (shame on you, Arkansas, if that happens), he will file multiple appeals. He will try to claim his defense team was inadequate by only calling two witnesses.

    The arrogance of Josh, JB, and the defense attorney’s is almost amusing. Why would you bring in such an unqualified “expert” witness? Did you really think the prosecutor of this heinous crime would accept the credentials of your tech “expert” as Bible truth? Just because you decree it, doesn’t make it fact JB. Not everyone is as uneducated, naive and easily manipulated as Michelle, the kids, and the members of your congregation.

    That said, I’m really trying to not put thoughts of Josh’s innocent into the universe. Certainly don’t want them to be actualized. Please, please God, send Josh to prison for many many years so he can’t hurt anyone else. He’s had at minimum 13 victims that are a part of his family—the 5 girls, his 7 children and Anna. I can’t understand why she is standing by him but that alone leads me to include her on his list of victims. Clearly there is emotional abuse and manipulation occurring.


    1. If he is found not guilty he wouldn’t file any appeals. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t do anything to get an acquittal overturned!


      1. You are right. I should not comment late a night when my brain is half asleep.

        What I meant to say is, if he is found guilty, he will file many appeals. He will try to claim inadequate defense because his attorney’s only called two witnesses.

        Please bless he is found guilty and won’t be given a chance to harm anyone else for years.


  3. We all know that JB and Michelle will be blaming the use of birth control on their son’s behaviour once he’s convicted.


    1. Yep. Especially when that pipsqueak Justin came out grinning with his thumbs up. He must have the maturity of a 6 year old.


    2. I get the impression that they think he’ll be found not guilty, whether it’s because of his notoriety, or because of daddy’s steep pockets. Either way, I don’t think many of them are even remotely worried that he’ll be convicted. I mean, the guy is charged with a horrific crime, and yet his parents (with the exception of JB today only), don’t even bother to show up for support. That would be very telling to me if I was a juror.


  4. With the families all sitting close together I really worry that they won’t be saying anything unfavorable about Josh. Likely, they “won’t remember anything” as I’m sure JB has made plenty of promises he can’t possibly keep if everyone “protects his family”.


    1. Me too. Those little girls need to be examined and questioned by a child psychologist.
      If he was brazen enough to molest his sisters during BIBLE READINGS 🤮 what does he do to his daughters during bedtime stories???


    1. Josh needs to go to jail for a long time. I think his sisters are gonna cover for him. I’m pretty sure his own girls were SA’d by him. Please your “Honor”, do the right thing and put him behind bars. That’s where scum belong. By him molesting with his own sisters, of course he would molest his own daughters.

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