Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - TLC Reality Star Busted for Child Porn: On Trial

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Former reality television star Josh Duggar, of “19 Kids and Counting,” arrested by federal agents on child pornography charges is not facing testimony in court. According to court documents, Josh Duggar “knowingly received child pornography” in May 2019.He also “knowingly possessed child pornography” during the same months by using the Internet to “download child sexual abuse material.” Duggar entered a rehabilitation center in 2015 after he confessed to inappropriately touching his younger sisters when he was a teenager.Duggar was also accused of creating a private, paid Ashley Madison account, a social site made for people wanting to cheat on their significant other. Attorneys for Duggar claim he was not responsible for the data on his computer, that he was hacked.Joining Nancy Grace Today:Sara G. West, M.D., Forensic Psychiatrist, Specializing in Sexually Deviant Behavior, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, forensicpsychiatryMD.comGlenn Bard - Retired Pennsylvania State Trooper First Class, Computer Crime Investigations, U.S. Veteran of Operation Desert Storm, PATCtech Digital Forensics patc tech dot com Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Wow, what a fall from grace, having your own show on TV, on TLC, and then now you land in court with claims you are downloading and viewing some of the worst child pornography that is known? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Of course, I'm talking about Josh Duger. Does anybody remember TLC's 19 and Counting? Well, maybe this will jog your memory. Take a listen.

This is the story of my family. We're the Duggars. That's me. I'm Michelle. There's Jim Bob my wonderful husband and our children Josh is our oldest he married Anna and they had our first grandchildren Mackenzie Michael and Marcus then there's Jana John David Jill she married Derek Jessa, Ginger, Joseph, Josiah, Joyanna, Jenediah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johanna, Jennifer, Jordan, and our youngest daughter Josie. That's a grand total of 19. And I delivered every one of them.

Of course, with this many kids, we do things a little differently than most families. It isn't always easy, but somehow we make it all work. Look, I'm not knocking big families. Power to them. I always wanted four children. I got two. I only got two. Blessed with two is a better way to put it.

But 19, that's a little over the top for me. Don't care about that today. I care more about the fact that Josh Duggar is charged with child pornography. Joining me, an all-star panel, Glenn Bard, retired Pennsylvania State Trooper, first class. Now, this is the important part, computer crime investigations. That's why we need to talk to Glenn Bard. U.S. veteran, Operation Desert Storm. It goes on and on.

PacTech Digital. You can find them at pactech.com. Sarah G. West, excuse me, Dr. Sarah G. West, forensic psychiatrist specializing in sexually deviant behavior and associate professor of psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. It's a lot to take in because I've learned, Dr. West, that very often we think we know people by seeing them all the time on TV. And 19 and counting ran a really long time, I understand, on TLC. And it wasn't just the mom and dad.

There are these innocent child figures that you attach to. And when you watch it every single episode, you start identifying with them. Look, I can't tell you what I went through when Monk, I don't know if you ever saw that, went off the air. He was a detective with all sorts of emotional and mental disorders. I actually missed Monk. So when you attach to these people, it's very hard for you, the viewer, or a juror to think they could do anything wrong, Dr. West. Sure.

So television shows, of course, have the benefit of leaving things on the editing room floor. They get to project an image of what they want you to see rather than what is actually going on behind the scenes, which they may or may not know about. You know, what is that feeling of familiarity that we think we know that person when really we don't? Sure. I don't think we really know anyone. You know, I noticed it, I guess, the first time during the O.J. Simpson trial, because the jurors really thought they knew Simpson. Little did they know that my former co-anchor, Johnny Cochran, and others had gone through Simpson's house and completely redecorated regarding private photos, all sorts of art. So when the jurors walked through, they saw a completely different aspect of Simpson. I guess it wasn't an aspect of Simpson's. It wasn't even real, but it fit with what they thought they knew.

Guys, we're talking about Josh Duggar, 33-year-old father of multiple children himself, now on trial for child pornography. I want to go first to Glenn Bard regarding what we know about Duggar's computer. But first of all, take a listen to our friend Byron Pitts at ABC Nightline. Josh Duggar was arrested in Arkansas on Thursday and on Friday, the charges were revealed. The 33-year-old former 19 Kids and Counting star is accused of receiving and possessing child pornography. During a hearing over Zoom, Duggar pled not guilty to the federal charges. According to court documents, in May 2019, Duggar allegedly used the internet to download child sexual abuse material. He allegedly possessed the material,

some of which involved the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12. If convicted, Duggar faces up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $250,000 on each count. The counts here seem to indicate that he went through quite a lot to download the porn. It's my understanding, Glenn Bard, former Pennsylvania State Trooper First Class Computer Crime Investig investigations expert, that he had all sorts of software on his computer at work at the used car lot. So it would not alert his wife. He was looking at not just inappropriate sex material, but illegal sex material. From what I understand, what he had was a dual boot system. And what that means is that it had a Windows operating system, but he could then boot into a Linux partition.

And the reason why people do that, not just this reason, but one of the reasons, is because when it boots into the Linux partition, all the software, the monitoring software, the networking software, won't work on that Linux partition side. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Glenn Bard, I hate to interrupt you midstream, but a lot of people don't know what you're saying because you're way, way, way DEF CON 4 on this. You've got to talk not computer language, but regular people talk. So when I say I believe from the facts

the state is trying to prove that Josh Duggar from 19 and counting on TLC had special software on his computer. So his wife, Anna, at home would not be alerted. He was looking at child porn. So let's start with something easy for for nontechies like myself to get their mind around. What is an alert on your computer that will notify somebody else, a third party, that you're doing something really naughty? What is that? There is monitoring software that will alert people when something like pornography is being viewed or certain websites are being accessed. Some people can use it to monitor their children and other people use it for like this circumstance.

Maybe a person who had a history in the past. Did you say some people use it to monitor their children? Like we have Bark, B-A-R-K, and it's, I had never heard of it before, but it alerts you when your child goes onto a website that's bad for them. And let me tell you what happened the other day. Listen to this, Dr. West. So I got an alert that my son, John David, was into self-harm. Well, I nearly did a backflip. I went on immediately because Bark had alerted me. Guess what it was? That week, and I was there when it happened, he was defending a goal. He was goalie in a soccer game at school and he dived almost sideways and his arm

went through the net. And he was so proud that he had an injury it was a bruise so he took he took a picture of his bruise that he got and by the way he did defend it they did not score the other team did not score and he was so proud that he was showing it off he took a picture of it with his cell phone and sent it to some of his friends. Look what I got defending the goal. And bark was so sensitive, it picked up on that bruise. And him taking a picture of it, it alerted me. You know, so I found that really interesting, Dr. West, that it's so sensitive to pick up things just like that. Have you ever encountered that in your psychiatric practice?

I have never seen the monitor software at youth, but certainly self-harm is a huge issue with our adolescent population now. So great that you are on top of that. I'm telling you. Okay, so let me ask you, back to you, Glenbard. When you say that it's like parents who monitor their children, what do you mean by that? What I mean is the software itself, what it does is it can be set up to just monitor activities, a person's activities, whether it be spending too much time on social media or accessing websites that contain pornography.

And what it will do is it will notify a person. It can be anything from just sending an email out or sending your internet history to an email account. And that lets the person be able to know what's been going on on that computer system. So what I understand is Josh Digger had high-tech software installed on his work computer to bypass the monitoring service that alerted wife Anna when he looked at, quote, mature teen porn. The court hears. crime stories with nancy grace guys we are talking about josh duggar take a listen to our cut three this is byron pitts from abc nightline, the Duggar family has been portrayed on their TLC show, 19 Kids and Counting, as a wholesome Christian family with old-fashioned values.

All right, let's all hold hands here, okay? No TV, modest dress. This one for the double date. No cursing. And above all, no premarital sex. We decided that there was going to be no kissing before marriage. But now they are a family under fire. After allegations surfaced,

their oldest child, Josh Duggar, had inappropriate contact with several underage girls beginning when he was 14 years old. Okay, it's a dichotomy. And I want to talk to you about this, Dr. West, that they present such a wholesome image, but yet we're finding out that according to the state, Josh Dugart downloaded child porn. And that is something people often do in the privacy of their own home that others may have no idea about. Actually, what's happening in the courtroom can be very confusing if you're not a high-tech computer guru like Glenn Bard is. But what's happening in that courtroom right now, our jurors are getting an overload of computer tech education and child porn. Take a listen to our friend Craig O'Neill at THV 11. All eyes are on Fable this week as the trial of Josh Duggar gets underway. The former reality TV star is charged with two counts of downloading and possessing child

pornography. Jury selection started this morning, and the judge has yet to decide on whether the prosecution can call Bobby Holt, a longtime friend of Duggar's, to testify. The prosecution claims in 2003, Duggar told Holt on several occasions he molested as many as four minors for several years. Duggar's lawyers say Holt should not testify because the things he said were at a time that she was acting as his spiritual advisor, with the understanding it would be confidential. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, along with fines of up to $250,000 on each count. Now, that is going to be an issue on appeal if there is a conviction that evidence of prior molestations of his sisters came into evidence in front of the jury.

But take a listen now to our friends at People Magazine. This is our cut 25. It's describing how Josh Duggar's computer at work, not home, was, quote, riddled with illicit material. I'm talking about child porn with children as young as seven, maybe younger. Take a listen, our friends at People. On the third day of Josh Duggar's trial on Thursday, an investigator detailed the personal forensic investigation of three of the former reality stars devices. One investigator who spoke the longest and will continue speaking on the stand Friday revealed details about evidence found on Duggar's HP desktop computer from his office at

a car lot. The investigator testified that the machine was riddled with illicit material. With the aid of a series of screenshots, the investigator walked through some of what he saw and learned in exploring the HP machine. He testified that there was a program to install a Linux operating system, which was downloaded on the device just days before the computer was found to be sharing the illicit material in May of 2019. He explained that the program made it possible that while the public-facing portion of the computer appeared to be mostly business-related, the hard drive had in fact been split in two.

Another expert's testimony described it as a separate computer on a computer. You know, I understand it was something called a Linux or Linux partition, which is a sophisticated piece of software creating a separate workspace on your computer. You install it as software on your computer, but then you open it up as if it's an entirely different device. What about that, Glenn Barr? Does that make any sense to you? Some people do that. What happens, they describe it very well. They cut the hard drive in two. And what will happen is you can be using the Windows side, which we all use for work in many cases. But when you want to do something that you don't want the Windows side to see,

or you just want to go into a different operating system, that machine can be turned off and turned back on, and this time go into a different operating system, that machine can be turned off and turned back on and this time go into that Linux operating system. It's its own operating system and it gives you truly like a second computer. It's the same keyboard, the same monitor, the same housing itself, but it's a completely different operating system. And when you do that, what it allows it to do is any type of controls that would be in place on the Windows side won't be in control on that Linux side. We're talking about Josh Duggar, 33 years old now, reality star in a former hit series on TLC, 19 Kids and Counting. It was a staple on TLC, a highly rating network. To Jackie Howard joining us from CrimeOnline.com, prosecutors have said in open court, and these are their words, not mine, that Duggar downloaded images and videos of young girls

as young as seven years old being, quote, abused, violated, and exploited, including files named such names as Daisy's Destruction, Playboy Sweetie, and Peddo Mom. I understand that there was a Little Rock Police Department special task force called Torrential Downpour. It was an undercover online investigation to unmask pedophiles and perverts. I understand that there was footage of girls age seven and nine being raped by an adult male and 65 images at least of a young girl, 7 or 8 years old, being sexually abused and then placed in a dog kennel. Jackie Howard, is it true that several of the jurors actually looked away as snippets of this material was shown to them on monitors. That is true, Nancy. Obviously, it's a very difficult situation, and that is not easy material to look at.

But we also know that Josh Duggar's family was affected. In fact, his wife actually got up and walked out of the courtroom in tears at that time. What does it mean, Glenn Bard? The court heard that Calmer, who was with the Little Rock police, tipped off federal investigators and they traced the, quote, IP address to Josh Duggar's used car dealership, Wholesale Motorcars. What does that mean to trace an IP address? What is that? So the IP address is Internet Protocol. And what that is, it's a number that will identify a network on the Internet. Kind of like your phone number will identify your series of phones at your home. The same thing happens with the Internet. It's just a series of numbers that will identify a network accessing

the internet through one access point or a router. So what they do is they can take that IP address and it will tell them the ISP, internet service provider. And what they do then is sort of legal process on that ISP who will then in turn tell them where that network comes back to physically, the physical location of that IP address at that time. You know what I find really interesting, Jackie Howard, joining us from Crime Online, when the feds came in and grabbed his desktop at work, Wholesale Motors, he said, without having any idea why they took the computer, quote, has someone downloaded child porn? Okay, you've heard me say

this until I'm sure you're blue in the face. Methinks thou doth protest too much. It's like you walk by a cop at the mall and you say, hey, I wasn't part of that smashing grab. And nobody asked. That's what he did, Jackie. Has someone downloaded child pornography? It is what he did, Nancy. And given his history that he has admitted in the past to having an issue and having been to a treatment center during his marriage, he was very open with his life. And they actually installed on that computer a program called Covenant Eyes. They subscribed to this in 2013, so we're looking at about eight years ago. And this program would alert his wife to any adult Internet usage, and it would report that back to Anna Duggar.

Now, the information that was set up, as you mentioned, on the link system was in a partition and had a password that was Intel. The password was the same password that he used to do his banking information. So it's very unlikely that anybody hacked in and decided to use the exact same password for what he did his banking with. Okay, tell me that again, Jackie Howard. I understand that his password involved his birthday, like the year. I mean, does anybody ever get tired of using their birthday or the year they were born? Like superstar in 1998. When you were born in 1998? I mean, he used his birthday in his password. His password was Intel 1988. And again, that's the same password that he used for his internet banking. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace to sarah g west i'm just a jd you're the md in psychiatry help me out first i want to talk to

you about the wife okay and this is not her fault she's not the one downloading child porn according to prosecutors i mean sick child porn where you rape a seven-year-old girl and then put her in a dog kennel. I could say more, but I'm not. I'm not. So why does the wife, they've got seven children together. Why does a wife stay with somebody that she knows they're addicted to not just pornography, but child pornography? kind of material is an illness. And, you know, if you view it through that lens, then you would maybe be more tempted to stick around and see somebody through their illness. I'm sorry, seeing it as an illness. Okay, I understand that. But have you ever known

Dr. West with me, Sarah G. West, forensic psychiatrist. You can find her at ForensicPsychiatryMD.com. Sarah West, in all the years that I prosecuted child molestation and sex offenses, I never saw one child molester get rehabilitated. It's in their DNA. I don't think they can change it. If you disagree, tell me why. Well, I do think that there are some treatment options available that may make it less likely that they would re-engage in that kind of behavior. You mean like Pavlov's dogs. In other words, they still want to do the naughty thing, but they know they're going to get zapped if they do it.

The impulse to do it never goes away, but they can be trained not to do it. Is that what you're saying? That is a very psychological approach to that. Yes, I think that is quite possible. How is that different from what you said? I would say that it's probably a little more complex. I think that you could probably decrease the impulses as well, but that would be the more challenging piece. Controlling the behavior is absolutely the thing that we need to be mindful of, and there are a couple of techniques that psychiatrists and psychologists both utilize to do that. The first is therapy. The mainstay of therapy is victim empathy. I think that that is a nice way to teach

people that what they're doing hurts other folks. And the second, probably more intrusive form, is medication. Medication can decrease sex drive and decrease somebody's likelihood that they would be able to physically act on those impulses. So basically you're saying, let me just put it in regular people talk, decreased sex activity. So the perp can't get an erection? That is one of the methods, yes. Another method would be the utilization of a medication that's real common. They're SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. More commonly, people might know Prozac, Zoloft.

Those are actually medications that decrease sex drive, decrease sexual desire. It's a side effect. We can use that side effect to treat people who have unusual sexual impulses. So you say unusual sex impulses. I call them felonies. But Dr. West, so one treatment to decrease the urge for child sex or child porn is to dope them up. But the minute they get off the drugs, they're right back at it. to your knowledge to cure them, to stop them forever having the impulse to have sex with children, which is rape, or look at child porn, to make that urge go away. I do not think there's a way to entirely make that urge go away.

So Dr. West, like it or not, I think you agree with me because I've never seen a child molester to my chagrin, ever be cured. When I was a new prosecutor, I was besieged by defense attorneys that wanted me to send their client to treatment facilities instead of to jail. I did it once. It was a mistake. It was a mistake. I never did it again because I learned the hard way. I learned the hard way. It doesn't work. I don't think it works. I do think it depends on insight. If people recognize they have a problem and are motivated to solve it, just like

any other medical condition, diabetes, high blood pressure, then they can do the things that are necessary to keep it under control. You know, Jackie, I want to go back to you. Jackie Howard Duggar says he was, quote, his words, not mine, vaguely familiar with the password Intel 1988, prompting a brief but furious exchange of Roberts, who accused him of hiding information. So, long story short, he admits that's his password. He knows it's his password. And what was he using the password for, Jackie Howard?

He was using it to access his banking information. And, good Lord, I'm a JD, not a DDS. I don't have to pull teeth. I can certainly try, Jackie Howard. He was also using it to look at videos of seven to eight-year-old girls being sexually abused, i.e. raped, and put in dog kennels. Take a listen to our... What? Go ahead. And if you did not have access to that password for the petition on his computer, no one else could access that.

No one else could access that. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our cut 32. This is Emma Claybrook at 4029 News. Before the forensics expert took the stand, the jury heard from three former Duggar family friends. The final witness testified that Duggar allegedly touched the private parts of four juveniles in 2003 when he was 15. Judge Tim Brooks told the jury that Duggar is not charged with child molestation in this case. In this case, he's only charged with possessing and receiving child pornography. But the judge says he allowed the testimony to stand today to help set up a motive for the current charges Duggar is facing.

And let me understand that Sarah West, a motive for the, and similar transactions are allowed. That means, let's say, I charge Jackie Howard with pulling a pistol and pistol whipping Kara here in the studio, just off the top of my head. And she's being tried for that. Jackie, you know, I don't like you anymore after you pistol whipped her. But I can then, as a prosecutor, bring in that on another occasion, she pistol whipped somebody else, that she threw a gun

at somebody else, that she is prone to gun violence. They are brought in to show motive, course of conduct, frame of mind, intent. They tend to prove the case in chief, although the jury is not considering those charges for sentencing or guilt or innocence. That's what's happening here. So let me understand this. Dr. West, the prosecutor brought in previous examples of him molesting his sisters to show motive, and the sisters were young, they were underage at the time, considered children in the eyes of the law, to show motive for downloading child porn.

Does that make sense to you, Dr. West? It does make sense, but we would look at someone's past behavior to get a better sense of what's going on currently. Absolutely something that I do when I work with folks who have a history of sex offenses, examine what has happened in the past to get a better understanding of what's going on right now. I don't understand, Dr. West, how when you've already been in trouble for sex-related crimes, that you're willing to risk your livelihood, your marriage, losing your seven children, because if he's convicted of child porn, he's not going to have access or visitation, unfettered visitation with his children. That's not going to happen.

No, you're right. Why would a perp risk it all? So it is a difficult pill to swallow. But again, I'll go back to the concept that this is an illness. In the same way that we wonder why folks continue to drink after they've had 10 DUIs. This is the same thing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, to Glenn Bard, former Pennsylvania State Trooper, First Class Computer Crime Investigations,

you can find him at forensicspactech.com. Glenn, have you seen this before where people that download child porn go through extreme and elaborate measures to hide it? Absolutely. A lot of times what I've seen personally from my investigations, that child porn a lot of times will be something that's very important to them. And like the same way that you protect things very important to you, whether it be your children and so on like that, nothing to do with this sort of stuff. I've seen almost identical things where people will go to great lengths about hiding it.

Or even I remember one case in particular, I had a person who had his family living in utter filth in a house. The house is deplorable. It was I mean, I felt terrible just walking through there but when you walked into that guy's computer room he actually kept covers and and cloth on the computers to keep them clean and safe he had his children living in utter absolute filth but those computer systems were protected and covered and kept safe and the reason why is because what was on them was child pornography. It was kind of like almost the focal point

of everything that he had in his life. So this is not surprising to hear this sort of thing taking place, I have to say it. You know, another thing, Dr. Wood, yeah, jump in. One of the things that's also important to remember

in regards to this Linux partition that he had on his computer, not only that, he had software that would also circumvent any search and make sure that the monitoring program that he and his wife had installed on the computer would not work and would not notify her. So he went to extreme measures. And my question to you, Dr. Sarah West, is I don't know quite how to say this, but sometimes it seems to me that the effort, the conniving, the scams, the secrecy, all of the labyrinth they go through to hide something adds to the thrill of it. You know, like, let's see, people that are cheating on their spouse.

They go through all this drama to register at a hotel under a different name and pay in cash and wear a hat and sunglasses when they go on. It's crazy to me. But to them, that's part of the excitement of it. Potentially, yeah. And there is a whole community out there on the dark web who exchanges this information. You know, once you've worked with a couple of these offenders,

you get a better sense of how deep this goes. Guys, we are talking about a reality TV star, Josh Duggar, right now on trial for downloading images of child porn. Straight back out to Jackie Howard, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Jackie, you and I have talked in depth with, for instance, our friend, we'll call her Alicia, Alicia Kay, who was raped and molested as a young child. And her molester took hundreds and hundreds of photos and video images of her. And to this day, they're still being traded on the dark web. And how much to this day, years, decades later, it still upsets these victims.

These images are being traded like baseball cards, Jackie Howard. They are in Nancy and the rings that these pictures get passed in on the dark web and through message boards by pedophiles and sex abuse people who watch porn. And it's just a circle. And they enjoy sharing it. It's almost like a hobby in a way. They enjoy sharing what they have found and what they've seen with other people who are abusers. If I were in court right now, I would look you dead in the eyes and tell you what's on those images, the videos.

I've already told you about the little girls being raped, one little children being sexually abused and forced to pose in certain ways in front of the camera. Those children will never be the same. I've worked with, I can't even count how many molestation victims' children. They go on to live, to have a job, maybe have a family. They're never, ever the same. And these pervs are trading these sex images, child porn, like they're baseball cards. Take a listen to Our Cut 31.

Zoe Henry, 5 News. Day six here in Fayetteville for the Joshua Duggar trial wrapped up and the biggest thing from today was there's no more evidence to be presented in this case. And the defense wrapped its, it rested its case earlier today. That came after the prosecution cross-examined the defense's computer forensic analyst and the defense's argument came up again. Was there a possibility for remote access for someone to get into this dealership computer and download those child pornographic images? Now the analyst says that there was software for remote access but there was no evidence that those remote access software were used in the time period in question. Now, to end the prosecution today, brought back Department of Justice representative.

We wait as justice unfolds in that Arkansas courtroom. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast. Goodbye, friend.