#Josh Duggar Trying To Get Brand New Child Porn Trial On Legal Loophole — Could It Possibly Work?!

We guess Jim Bob Duggar didn’t sell all that land for nothing? These are some bold legal moves he’s paying for!

Once again Josh Duggar is trying to get out from under his child porn conviction. Back in December the 19 Kids and Counting alum was found guilty of one count each of receiving and possessing child pornography, and he’s looking down the barrel of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on April 5, but before then his legal team is going to pull out all the stops. They’ve already asked for a retrial and for the verdict to be thrown out, but they’re still at it.

A couple weeks back Josh’s lawyers argued there was never any direct evidence presented in the trial that Josh personally viewed the child porn. Is that even a requirement for the charges of receiving and possessing though? Apparently not. The prosecution responded:

“The government did not need to provide evidence that he personally viewed the material to convict him of receiving and possessing child pornography, it only had to prove that he knew the material was of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”

Considering how difficult it was to track down these videos on the dark web, that seems pretty airtight.

Related: The Worst Thing Josh Duggar Is Accused Of Downloading

In any case, the prosecution ultimately responded by saying that the “evidence of the defendant’s guilt is clear and overwhelming.”

We’d have to agree, considering it was his work computer in his office, and the secret system installed on it — where the child porn was found — was password protected by his go-to password, a password that was even on the Duggar Family Instagram account. The argument that it was someone else coming in and framing him is frankly pretty ridiculous. Add to that all the testimony about Josh’s alleged previous admissions that he molested children, and you have about the most slam-dunk case we’ve ever heard of.

So what’s the new argument?

On Monday Josh’s lawyers filed a new motion, obtained by The Sun, this time calling the trial “unconstitutional.” Um, how’s that again? They wrote:

“This is the rare case where a criminal defendant was deprived of significant constitutional rights and the law requires a new trial.”

So they’re trying to say this is one of those cases where, because of a legal loophole, the entire trial was unfair? What rights are they even talking about??

This seems to refer to the presentation of so-called exculpatory evidence — the testimony of a man named Caleb Williams. Caleb was an employee at the car dealership in 2019, and the defense wants to present him as an alternate suspect. They argue that the government held back this information too long for Caleb to be called as a witness.

The prosecution responded that this was “pure fiction” as the man wasn’t even in Arkansas when the porn was downloaded and “was not identified as a possible suspect or witness by law enforcement.”

Related: Josh Duggar’s Child Porn Computer Wallpaper Was His Kids?!

In the new filing, Josh’s lawyers argue that it should have been up to the jury to decide if Caleb was in the state at the time of the crimes.

The government has countered by saying Josh’s legal team was able to call the co-worker as a witness and chose not to — and they heavily imply it’s because they knew it was B.S. and wouldn’t move the needle with the jury:

“The defendant, for his part, claimed that someone else did it, but his attempts to scapegoat others collapsed under the mildest scrutiny. His own expert largely agreed with government’s explanation of the facts and, when given the chance to rebut evidence placing the defendant at the computer, conceded that she could not.”

In case you missed that one, Josh had photos on his phone taken inside the office that were timestamped with the same time as a download of the porn, proving he was there for it.

We’re still not clear on how the government stopped the defense team from presenting their alternate theory of the case. It sounds like they could have called this Caleb guy as a witness and didn’t because it didn’t help their case. Could the court possibly go for it?

Seems like a lot of grasping at straws before a dreaded sentencing hearing if you ask us! But hey, if it’s unlikely to work and it’s on Jim Bob’s dime, whatevs, right?

[Image via Washington County Sheriff’s Office.]