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Joseph Duggar, 31, was arrested in Arkansas, where he lives, and
was awaiting extradition to Florida on Thursday. Duggar is
charged with lewd and lascivious behavior on a child under 12
years old, according to an arrest affidavit from the Bay County
Sheriff's Office in Panama City, Florida.
Police officers in Tontitown, Arkansas, on Wednesday contacted
deputies in Bay County, saying they had interviewed a
14-year-old girl who told them that Duggar had molested her
several times during a family trip to Panama City Beach when she
was age 9, according to the affidavit.
The girl's father confronted Duggar about the abuse this week,
and the father said Duggar admitted to it. Police officers in
Tontitown had the father call Duggar with a detective on the
line, and he again admitted to the actions, the arrest affidavit
said.
There was no online court docket in Florida for Duggar so it
wasn't known if he had an attorney. Nobody responded immediately
to an inquiry made on the Duggar family media request website.
The Tontitown Police Department said in a statement Thursday
that the investigation remains open. The police department,
located in a 4,300-person town in the Ozark Mountains of
northwest Arkansas, deferred further questions to the Bay County
Sheriff’s Office in Florida.
TLC's “19 Kids and Counting” followed the lives of devout
Baptists Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar and their 19 children, all
of whose names began with the letter “J.”
TLC canceled the show in 2015 following allegations that Josh
Duggar had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter years
earlier. Josh Duggar’s parents said he had confessed to the
fondling and apologized.
He was sentenced in 2022 to about 12 1/2 years in prison on one
count each of receiving and possessing images portraying child
sexual abuse.
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Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana contributed to this report.
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