Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - TLC REALITY STAR BUSTED ON CHILD PORN JOSH DUGGAR DEMANDS FREEDOM ON LEGAL TECHNICALITY

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Josh Duggar hires a new attorney as he tries for a fourth bid at freedom. Attorney Beau B. Brindley is arguing Duggar’s original trial was unfair. At an appeal hearing last month, Duggar appeared virtually, regarding an appeal that prosecutors argue was filed after the deadline. The court is deciding whether this appeal can proceed.  The current motion alleges prosecutorial misconduct, misleading forensic evidence, and claims that evidence was withheld.   His previous attempts to vacate the conviction, including appeals to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, have been denied.  The former reality television star was arrested by federal agents on child pornography charges,  “knowingly received child pornography.”   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.com Glenn Bard - Retired Pennsylvania State Trooper First Class, Computer Crime Investigations, U.S. Veteran of Operation Desert Storm, PATCtech Digital Forensics patc tech dot com Jackie Howard - Crime Stories investigative reporter.    Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Josh Dugger, remember him? The former reality TV star, Josh Dugger? And the big happy family? Dugger hires a Chicago-based lawyer that represented Freak R. Kelly. to have his conviction vacated.

This as his wife, Anna Dugher, returns to social media for the first time in five years. Her husband, Josh, festering behind bars. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. First of all, let's talk about Anna Duger. She makes her very first appearance on social media

in five years with a brand new blonde hairstyle. She is the wife of the disgraced 19 kids and counting star Josh Adugger. He's now serving a 12 and a half year term on child porn. Ew. She popped up on social media plugging her puppy breeding business. She is a mother of seven. How do you explain this to your children? Oh, Daddy's Away!

Angel! On child porn, she stayed out of the spotlight since her husband's conviction, but now she's reportedly charging $2,000 per puppy. She looked a lot better than she did the last time we saw her weathering the trial of her husband. But now, let's get down to it. Josh Duger hires a high-profile lawyer, the same lawyer that represented sex freak, sex. trafficker, former famous musician, R. Kelly. Attorney Bo Brindley is arguing Douger's trial was unfair. At an appeal hearing last month, Dugger appeared virtually. Prosecutors have argued

that this appeal was filed after the deadline. The court is deciding whether this appeal can proceed. The current motion alleges prosecutorial misconduct misleading forensic evidence and claims that evidence was withheld. This is Dougher. Second and final appeal, his previous attempts to vacate the conviction, including appeals to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court have been denied. Let's, as we say in court, refresh our recollection on the Josh Dugger trial. Josh is our oldest. He married Anna and they had our first grandchildren. Josh Dugger is charged with child pornography. Joining me an all-star panel.

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. Pat Tech Digital. You can find them at packtech.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 it. 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 Simpsons. It wasn't even real. But it fit with what they thought they knew. Guys, we're talking about Josh Dugger, 33-year-old father of multiple children himself on trial for child pornography. I want to go first to Glenn Bard regarding what we know about Dugher's computer. But 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 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. So 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, 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, Defcom 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 Dugger, 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 non-techies 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 child. 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 is 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. Sorry. Okay, so let me ask you, back to you, Glenn Bard, 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. 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 Dugher 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 are gerrars are getting an overload of computer tech education and child porn. Take a listen to our friend Craig O'Neill at THV-11. Bobby Holt, a longtime friend of Duggers, to testify. The prosecution claims in 2003,

Dugger told Holt on several occasions he molested as many as four minors for several years. Dugger's lawyers say Holt should not testify because the things he said were at a time that she was acting as his spiritual advisor, but the understanding it would be confidential. Take a listen now to our friends at People Magazine. It's describing how Josh Dugger's computer at work, not home,

was, quote, riddled with illicit material. I'm talking about child. mild porn with children as young as seven may be younger. 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 Bard? 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 window side, which we all use for work in many cases. But when you want to do something that you don't want the window 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 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 window side won't be in control on that Linux side. We're talking about Josh Dugger, 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 Crime Online.com, prosecutors have said in open court,

and these are their words, not mine, that Dugher 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 Petto Mom. I understand that there was a Little Rock Police Department special task force called Trenchal Downpour. It was an undercover online investigation. to unmask pedophiles and perverts. I understand that there was footage of girls aged 7 and 9 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 Dugher's family was affected. In fact, his wife actually got us and walked out of the courtroom in tears at that time. What does it mean, Glen Bard? The court heard that Calmer, who was with the... the Little Rock Police

tipped off federal investigators and they traced the quote IP address to Josh Dugger's used car dealership wholesale motor cars. What does that mean to trace an IP address?

What is that? So the IP address is internet protocol and what that is is 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 to the internet. It's just a series of numbers that will identify a network, accessing the internet, through one

access points 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 IPT. address at that time. You know what I find really interesting, Jackie Howard, joining some 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 till I'm sure you're blue in the face. Me, thanks 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 through a treatment center During his marriage he was very open with his wife 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 Duger. Now, the information that was set up, as you mentioned, on the link system, was in a partition and had a password. 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.

Experience Harry Stiles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Stiles. IR Radio wants to send you an mate across the pond with flights for. from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Here we got it! Download the free IHeart Radio app. Listen to IHeart new music

for 10 minutes. Enter to win. Every day is another chance to see Harry Styles. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally available now. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Former reality star of 19 kids and counting Josh Dugger

Hires are Kelly's lawyer, Beau Brindley, even though he previously claimed he was flat broke. Why is he hiring a high-profile lawyer? Because he wants to get out of jail, of course. Nancy, apparently Dugger doesn't want out of jail bad enough to follow the rules. Dugger has faced disciplinary action and spent time in solitary confinement. That has impacted his good time credit, which has now extended his jail stay. Originally, he was scheduled to be released in August 2032. Now, for the third extension, Dugger's scheduled release date is February 2nd, 233. He had approximately two months added to his previous release date.

His cousin Amy claimed one extension was due to a rules violation that resulted in him being placed, as I said, in solitary confinement. In a 2023 disciplinary action, he possessed an illegal cell phone. While the former 19 kids-in-counting reality star tries to bite and claw his way out of jail hiring a brand-new lawyer, the jury in his case will not soon forget the evidence. Dr. Sarah G. West, 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 7-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? Well, I would suggest as the diagnostic and statistical manual or the psychiatry Bible would tell us that looking at this 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 Forensic Psychiatry,

MD.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 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 dog? 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 teeth. 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, decrease 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 re-uptake 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. My question is, is there a way 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 molest. Lester, 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. 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, Dougher 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 a pull teeth. I can certainly try Jackie Howard. He was also using it to look at videos of 7 to 8-year-old girls being sexually abused.

I, raped, and put in dog kennels. Take a listen to your cut... 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 Hourcut 32. This is Emma Claybrook at 4029 News.

Before the forensics expert took the stand, the jury heard from three former Dugger family friends. The final witness testified that Dugger allegedly touched the private parts of four juveniles in 2003 when he was 15. 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. 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 per risk at all? So it is a difficult pill to swallow, but again, I'll go back to the concept of this is an illness. Harry Styles, live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. IHart Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond, with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Here we go, that! Download the free IHart Radio app. Listen to IHart new music for 10 minutes.

Enter to win. Every day is another chance to see Harry Styles. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally, available now. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Reality star of 19 kids and counting hires a lawyer who defended R. Kelly in his jailhouse bid to have his conviction thrown out. But I remember the evidence. 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 when 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 or to be, you know, your children and so on like that. That's what I 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 cloth on the computers to keep them clean and safe. He had his children living in utter absolute filled, but those computer systems were protected and covered and kept safe. And the reason why was because what was on them was child pornography. It was kind of like almost the focal point of everything that he was.

he had me life. So this is not surprising to hear this sort of thing taking to like things to say it. You know, another thing, Dr. Yeah, jump in. One of the things that's also important to remember that 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 had and his wife had installed on the computer would not work and would not notify her. So he went to extremely. So he went to extremely. 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 paying 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 Dugger. Straight back out to Jackie Howard, crimeonline.com investigative reporter. Jackie, you and I have talked in depth with, for instance, our friend will 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, Lauren Nancy, and the rings that these are. 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's almost like a hobby in a way they enjoy sharing what they have found and what they sing with other people who are abusers. If I were in court right now I would state 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 girl being molested and thrown in a dog pen. There's so many more that are even more graphic

of 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 purves are trading these sex images, child porn, like their baseball cards. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye. This is an I-Heart podcast.

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