Heartbreaking!!! Kendra Duckar’s harsh warning has come true.
FAYETTEVILLE — Joseph Duggar, while in the Washington County Detention Center last month, spoke in phone calls with his wife about whom they should talk with or trust after his arrest related to child sex crimes charges.
Kendra Duggar made a simple recommendation: “Just don’t trust anyone.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned from this, do not trust anyone,” she told her husband in a March 23 call.
Duggar, 31, was arrested March 18 in Arkansas and later extradited to Florida after authorities in Panama City Beach, Fla., interviewed a 14-year-old girl who accused him of molesting her when she was 9 and he was on vacation.
The third oldest of Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar’s 10 sons — the family also includes nine daughters — was charged upon arrest with lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim under 12 and lewd and lascivious behavior conducted by a person over 18. He returned home from Florida after a $600,000 bond was posted. He was ordered to have no contact with the accuser of any kind and ordered to have no unsupervised contact with any minor.
Joseph Duggar communicated with his wife and other family members through jail phone conversations and emails during his stay in the Washington County Detention Center. All calls to and from jail inmates are recorded. The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obtained recordings of the calls and copies of email correspondence through Freedom of Information Act requests.
During one call, Kendra and Joseph Duggar discussed that the only time it was safe for Joseph Duggar to talk to or email with anyone about his case would be when meeting with his attorney because all communications are monitored.
“Just know that none of this is confidential,” he said during a March 22 call.
During another conversation, Kendra Duggar warned her husband not to talk to “Greg,” though it was not clear who “Greg” is.
Gregory Payne was at one point among the defense attorneys for Joseph Duggar’s brother, Joshua, when he was facing federal charges related to possession of child sexual abuse material. However, Joshua Duggar’s main attorneys in that case were Travis Story and Justin Gelfand.
“Do not talk to Greg. Whatever you do, do not,” Kendra Duggar said during the March 23 call.
Joseph Duggar said he had called “Greg” at some point, but added, “Greg told me, he’s like, ‘Don’t tell me anything.’ This is what he told me. So I didn’t tell him.”
‘TERRIBLE DECISIONS’
On March 25, James “Jim Bob” Duggar sent his son an email, acknowledging Joseph Duggar’s “terrible decisions” and expressing hope charges against Kendra Duggar would be dropped.
“Joseph, I’m so sorry for what you are going through. Mom & I love you very much! Looks like you have a long road ahead of you, but God will get you through,” Jim Bob Duggar wrote. “You have made some terrible decisions, but God has already forgiven you if you have asked him.”
The email went on to say, “It is ridiculous that they charged Kendra and arrested her, we’ve hired (redacted) to help Kendra. We were praying that we can get her charges dropped.”
In addition to the Florida charges against Joseph Duggar, both parents are facing state charges. Arkansas authorities arrested them March 20 after a home visit turned up evidence of possible child endangerment, including locks on the outside of their children’s bedroom doors. Both were charged with four misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and four counts of second-degree false imprisonment. Kendra is represented by Story in her case.
Kendra Duggar was restricted from seeing her four children for a month, according to emails between Joseph Duggar and his sister-in-law Anna Duggar that were exchanged March 21 after Anna and Kendra Duggar had spoken. Anna Duggar is married to eldest son Joshua, who is serving time in federal prison after his 2021 conviction on two counts of possessing and receiving child sexual abuse material.
Jim Bob Duggar said in his email that his son was “just going to have to accept the situation at this point and it’s also fine to pray that God would have mercy on you, but you’re probably gonna face a major consequences for several years to come.”
Kendra Duggar, who appeared in 79 episodes of the “19 Kids and Counting” spinoff “Counting On” from 2015 to 2021, was Kendra Caldwell when she married Joseph Duggar in 2017. The spouses welcomed their first two children on the spinoff, which was created after revelations that Joshua Duggar said he had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter in the early 2000s resulted in the cancellation of “19 Kids and Counting.”
The statute of limitations on those offenses had run out, but then “Counting On” was axed in 2021 after Joshua Duggar was arrested on the federal charges for which he was later convicted.
CASE HISTORY
Earlier this year, the accusations about the younger Duggar brother came to light. On March 18, the Bay County Sheriff’s Office in Florida issued a statement accusing Joseph Duggar of molesting a then-9-year-old girl during a vacation years before.
“Duggar repeatedly asked her to sit on his lap,” the Sheriff’s Office said in the statement. “As the vacation continued, he also asked her to sit next to him on a couch and covered them with a blanket. During this time, Duggar manipulated the victim’s underwear and grazed her genitals. Duggar would also continue to rub his hands on her thighs.”
There were multiple such incidents, authorities reported. “The victim stated Duggar eventually apologized (to her) for his actions and the incidents stopped after the apology,” according to the statement.
The child’s father confronted Duggar about the incidents this year, investigators reported. On March 17, Duggar admitted to the father and to hometown detectives what he had done and a warrant was issued for his arrest, according to police.
Joseph Duggar’s next court date in the Florida case is April 20. But Albert J. Sauline III, Duggar’s attorney, on Saturday filed a waiver of appearance at any hearing on any motion in the case.
Sauline on March 29 filed a written plea of not guilty, waiver of arraignment and demand for a jury trial in the case.
“This plea shall maintain Defendant’s right to raise any and all procedural motions, objections, or defenses to the charges filed herein,” according to the notice.
