Joseph Duggar of ‘19 Kids and Counting’ faces child sex abuse charges
A former star of the TLC reality series “19 Kids and Counting” has been arrested on felony child sex abuse charges in Florida.
On Wednesday, the Bay County Sheriff’s Office charged Joseph Garrett Duggar, 31, with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious behavior involving a minor.
The charges stem from alleged incidents that occurred during a 2020 family vacation in Panama City Beach when the victim was 9 years old.
According to a statement from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, the family was staying at a residence on Danny Drive during a 2020 vacation. Investigators say Duggar repeatedly asked the victim to sit on his lap during the trip.
As the vacation continued, he asked her to sit next to him on a couch and covered them both with a blanket. During that time, Duggar allegedly manipulated the victim’s underwear and grazed her genitals. He also continued to rub his hands on her thighs, the sheriff’s office said.
The victim told investigators that Duggar eventually apologized for his conduct. She said the incidents stopped after the apology. The victim, now 14, apparently only just now disclosed the alleged abuse to her family in Tontitown, a city in Washington County, Arkansas, where the Duggar family has long resided.
On March 17, the victim’s father confronted Duggar about the alleged incidents. Duggar admitted his actions to the father and to Tontitown detectives, according to authorities.
Bay County investigators were contacted March 18 by a Tonitown detective to report a case of past sexual abuse.
Formal charges include lewd and lascivious behavior — molestation of a victim less than 12-years-old, and lewd and lascivious behavior conducted by a person 18 years or older.
Duggar was arrested and is awaiting extradition to Bay County to face the charges.
He is the seventh of 19 children born to Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, an Arkansas couple who rose to national fame through reality television. The family starred in TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” which aired for more than a decade before the network canceled it in 2015.
The cancellation came after reports surfaced that Josh Duggar, Joseph’s older brother, had molested underage girls as a teenager. Joseph Duggar later appeared in the TLC spin-off “Counting On,” which documented his courtship and marriage to Kendra Caldwell.
In December 2021, Josh Duggar was convicted on two federal counts of receiving and possessing child pornography. He was sentenced in May 2022 to more than 12 years in federal prison.
Josh Duggar’s legal team has pursued appeals of his conviction, but were unsuccessful in 2024 when the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.
Joseph Duggar’s arrest marks the first known criminal case against another member of the immediate Duggar family since Josh Duggar’s 2021 conviction.
This article was originally published by The Roys Report.
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the Faith & Family Reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.