A little more than a year after being arrested on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography, former TLC reality star Josh Duggar has been sentenced to twelve and a half years in prison.
This is per BuzzFeed News, which notes that Duggar—who came to national prominence as one of the stars of the TLC reality series 19 Kids And Counting, as the eldest son of the massive Duggar family—was treated to a 29-page opinion from District Judge Timothy Brooks that laid out, in no uncertain terms, that “There is no merit to Mr. Duggar’s argument in favor of acquittal.”
(On a personal note: We try to be very diligent about our linking here at the Newswire desk, naming and directing our readers toward the source material for articles as best we can. That being said, we would like to pointedly not recommend clicking the above link to the Buzzfeed News article if you’re feeling any kind of bad about the human race already today, since it contains descriptions of the material Duggar has been convicted of viewing that genuinely fucked us up tonight. Just saying.)
Suffice it to say that Duggar was found guilty back in December; in the meantime, his lawyers have argued for a minimum sentence of five years, while prosecutors have been looking for the maximum of 20. He’d previously been accused, as a teenager, of sexual misconduct toward several younger girls, including several of his sisters, allegations that contributed to the ending of 19 Kids And Counting when they resurfaced in 2015.
Duggar’s attorney issued a plea for “mercy” to the court, asserting that “As he moves forward into the next chapter of his life, Duggar continues to have so much good to offer the world.” Judge Brooks does not appear to have been especially moved by this argument.
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