News broke yesterday that Josh Duggar had been sentenced to 151 months in prison after being found guilty on two child pornography charges late last year. At 12 and a half years, that’s far fewer than the 20 years the prosecution was hoping for, but it’s also much longer than the five years the defense was hoping its client would get. He’ll spend the next decade+ in a to-be-determined prison, but what happens after the reality personality is ultimately released?
The prison tenure may be the biggest thing the former 19 Kids and Counting Star is going to have to endure coming up, but it won’t be the end of his challenges. We already knew that Josh Duggar would have to register as a sex offender in the U.S., but even when he exits the system, he’ll have to abide by probation restrictions. The probation will last even longer than his sentence, and will be in place for 20 years.
As part of his probation structure, Duggar will also not be able to be in an unsupervised room alone with any of the seven children he shares with his wife. Duggar's wife attended his sentencing on the day and also reportedly plans to stay married to her husband, though Anna Duggar has been making financial moves in his absence in recent months.
In addition to these major changes, Josh Duggar won’t be able to own a computer or really any device that is able to store photos, unless he is able to secure permission for those items from his parole officer. He cannot be caught viewing porn, either, or it will violate the terms of his parole.
The latter might seem obvious given the case was based around evidence Duggar had downloaded and stored child pornography using a Linux partition on a computer at the car dealership he worked at. But he will also not be able to access adult pornography in the future.
Finally, Duggar will also not be able to obtain a medical marijuana card after getting out of jail. He may be asked to submit to polygraph testing regarding any of these activities by his probation officer at any time.
The former reality star’s sentencing day was lengthy with folks lining up before the hearing. A lot of objections were brought up by Josh Duggar’s legal team during the day in court, some of which happened after the probation ruling was laid out. In particular, the defense objected to the adult pornography and polygraph probation restrictions, but both were held up by Judge Timothy L. Brooks (via People).
The judge also recommended that Duggar spend his prison tenure in Seagoville, Texas, as it has its own sex offender treatment program. Alternatively, he may be housed in a Texarkana prison, which would mean he would stay in Arkansas, where the trial and Josh's arrest took place and a large swathe of his famous family lives. Duggar does not have the possibility of parole, according to a press release from the Western District of Arkansas United States Attorney's Office.
Duggar had previously been held in solitary confinement for a period around the holidays while awaiting sentencing, a move which is typical for sex offenders.
