(Possible Child Sexual Abuse Content) Josh and Anna 34: Plea Deal in the Making?

[hauntedoklahoma]

1 hour ago, Meggo said:

I am pretty sure - having committed NO CRIME EVER (maybe a bit of speeding) - if feds showed up at my house - I would call an attorney. Seriously. I've watched enough Law & Order (man I love that show) to know that I'm not talking to ANYONE at that level without someone official with me... 
And seriously- I'm the least shady person in the world!

You should! It's not about guilt--law enforcement flusters people, whether it's intentional or not, and attorneys are paid to know how to handle that. You are not paid to know how to handle that. It's always better to have someone from within the system on your side, no matter whether or not you've done anything wrong. 

[Queen Of Hearts]

33 minutes ago, BensAllergies said:

I'm tickled by this reference. Dead on!

For those unaware...

At the time of the interview, the agents didn't know that Tor was installed on the computer nor did they mention Tor, but Josh voluntarily told them that he was familiar with it. He also asked if the agents were there because of child pornography.

Yeah, because completely normal, non-guilty people would automatically assume THAT was why their business was getting raided.  Josh really is a dumb ass.  

[sixcatatty]

5 hours ago, BensAllergies said:

When they took his phone as part of the search warrant, he said he wanted to talk to a lawyer.

But then when the agents told him that he was free to leave, curiosity got the better of him and he stayed and ended up chatting with them. Then tried to use a defense strategy that he was denied a lawyer because they took his phone.

Not to mention the US Supreme Court hass made it clear that if you ask for a lawyer AND KEEP TALKING DESPITE THE REQUEST, you have, in the vernacular, screwed yourself. But clients are their own worst enemy.

[front hugs > duggs]

When I was in college, a police officer picked me out at a bar for looking underage (I was not). I had to go with him to his car to scan my id (I had a friend and asked to see his badge before complying). Even though I knew my id was legitimate and I was over 21, I was shitting myself! I was so afraid to get in trouble 😂 I’m not as soft anymore…

[Dandruff]

13 hours ago, Giraffe said:

He's been charged with horrific crimes and she still publicly stands by her man. He spit in the face of their conservative beliefs time and again. Why would it even cross their minds that creating M8 would make them look like hypocrites?

Can't speak for Anna but I think Josh was trying, or at least hoping, to avoid public exposure.  I doubt he wanted to look like a hypocrite (again) - it probably pisses JB off and brings negative feedback from their own kind.  If they were to produce an M8, that child would be an ongoing reminder of the hypocrisy.  I just don't think they want that, not that I'm saying they care about it from a moral level.

1 hour ago, front hugs > duggs said:

When I was in college, a police officer picked me out at a bar for looking underage (I was not). I had to go with him to his car to scan my id (I had a friend and asked to see his badge before complying). Even though I knew my id was legitimate and I was over 21, I was shitting myself! I was so afraid to get in trouble 😂 I’m not as soft anymore…

What did he say when he found out you were legit?

[AussieKrissy]

12 hours ago, BensAllergies said:

When they took his phone as part of the search warrant, he said he wanted to talk to a lawyer.

But then when the agents told him that he was free to leave, curiosity got the better of him and he stayed and ended up chatting with them. Then tried to use a defense strategy that he was denied a lawyer because they took his phone.

Surely there was a land line in the office he could have used? Maybe not these days I suppose. 
not that I’m defending him the guy is stupid and dense and dangerous. 

[front hugs > duggs]

5 hours ago, Dandruff said:

 

What did he say when he found out you were legit?

He was honestly so rude the whole time and was making threats that if it was in fact a fake id I would be expelled from school. When he scanned it and all came back good, he just gave it back to me and told me I was free to go. He did not apologize. 

[EmCatlyn]

9 hours ago, FiveAcres said:

…But I have to wonder what he thought he was doing when he decided to talk to the agents. Did he really think that his Arkansas good-old-boy charm was going to impress professional law enforcement officials?

I suspect that Josh can’t think.

He may be able to use his brain to understand and follow directions, but real thinking is more than that. You have to be able to analyze and you have to be able to think of cause and effect.  The Duggar education doesn’t encourage thinking.

Josh probably talks when nervous and just started talking without considering that this was one time he needed to shut up.  

 

[Grace]

On 9/16/2021 at 12:34 AM, Bluebirdbluebell said:

It probably won't go to trial and probably only people in the area will be called as jurors.

I'm local so I AM people in the area 😬

But I didn't know parents who are the main care-givers in a family are exempt so it looks like I'm in the clear after all

 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

1 hour ago, Grace said:

I'm local so I AM people in the area 😬

But I didn't know parents who are the main care-givers in a family are exempt so it looks like I'm in the clear after all

That wouldn't necessarily work in my state, but all you have to do is say "I'm familar with the family, and I know he molested his sisters. I think he's guilty." and they will dismiss you. A juror has to go in with an open mind, so saying you don't have an open mind will get you out of it.

[EmCatlyn]

2 hours ago, Grace said:

I'm local so I AM people in the area 😬

But I didn't know parents who are the main care-givers in a family are exempt so it looks like I'm in the clear after all

 

That was my experience in Tennessee back in the early 90s.  Hope it’s the same in Arkansas. 😉

[FiveAcres]

I am in the jury pool for the murder trial of Leticia Stauch for her stepson Gannon. If called, I would say that I am unable to keep an open mind and that I think she killed him. 

[Knight of Ni]

I wonder if they would move the trial to a different area in order to find people who aren't local. They would be less likely to know have had contact with the family or know about the case. With him being more well known than the average person this might be difficult.  

 

[mpheels]

11 minutes ago, Knight of Ni said:

I wonder if they would move the trial to a different area in order to find people who aren't local. They would be less likely to know have had contact with the family or know about the case. With him being more well known than the average person this might be difficult.  

 

Probably not. The threshold for moving a trial is really, really high. For example, the trial for the Boston marathon bombing was held in Boston. The bombing directly impacted everyone in the city because of the lockdown response and manhunt that followed, but even that wasn’t enough to move the trial. 
 

If Josh goes to trial, they will exclude people who know him personally, but having heard briefly of the case or simply knowing the Duggar family exists will not be enough to exclude people. Judges are pretty good at reading people and cutting through the crap during voir dire. Potential jurors don’t get an open mic to justify why they shouldn’t be on the jury. They will be asked specific, pointed questions while under oath, with the potential for being held in contempt of court if they lie.

[Alisamer]

On 9/17/2021 at 12:43 PM, BensAllergies said:

For those unaware...

At the time of the interview, the agents didn't know that Tor was installed on the computer nor did they mention Tor, but Josh voluntarily told them that he was familiar with it. He also asked if the agents were there because of child pornography.

 

On 9/17/2021 at 1:18 PM, Queen Of Hearts said:

Yeah, because completely normal, non-guilty people would automatically assume THAT was why their business was getting raided.  Josh really is a dumb ass.  

Truth here. 

If the feds showed up at my work siezing computers, I can guarantee you no one, not even my inappropriately joking boss, is going to be all "Oh, is this about that secret password-protected Tor partition on the hard drive? Did someone download child porn there?" which is basically what Josh said. It's like a young preschooler with ice cream all over his face and shirt claiming he has no idea where the missing ice cream cone could possibly have gone! He's never seen any ice cream! What even is ice cream? There's no ice cream here, never has been!

Josh is so dumb. Even we, here, who knew about his previous... issues, mostly initially suspected financial or tax-related shenanigans, or something related to a car they had acquired. Even those of us who thought the worst of him didn't necessarily think "car lot raid" would equal "CSA investigation" immediately. I mean, the majority of the time "business raided and computers seized" means "financial, tax, or organized crime funny business". 

Josh, however, wasn't like "oh, what's this about?" It sounds like he was more like "Oh, are you looking at the computer that definitely doesn't have any CSA materials at all on it, no way, and if it does it was somebody else who dowloaded it! On the secret partition that I installed! That's protected with the same password as my bank account! Which is my birth date!"

So dumb. 

I mean it was going to come out, eventually. But when the first thing you say to an officer is "haha, what, did someone download child porn or something?" you can't even pretend to be surprised when it does. 

[EmCatlyn]

On 9/17/2021 at 12:18 PM, Queen Of Hearts said:

Yeah, because completely normal, non-guilty people would automatically assume THAT was why their business was getting raided.  Josh really is a dumb ass.  

Sometimes I wonder if Josh is unconsciously driven by the desire to get caught and punished because of some deeply ingrained need to go through exposure, confess, and thus be absolved of guilt.  (You know, repent and come back to Jesus.)  

He is a terrible person, but also a pathetic one because he seems to throw away all his advantages to satisfy his inappropriate sexual desires.  Maybe it’s because he is stupid and entitled, but he does seem driven by compulsions he can’t control.

Even if he doesn’t believe all the stuff his parents taught about God, even if he only pays lip service to the rhetoric of fundie repentance, I would guess that he has some sense of guilt and some fear of divine punishment deep down.  So maybe when the FBI shows up at his door, he babbles in a way that shows he is guilty because (at that moment) he thinks The Lord may be intervening.  Maybe (one hopes) he has been using CSA as a way to prevent himself from acting on his impulses and molesting children in his environment (one prays that is so).  Maybe he feels that makes it okay, that though he has violated the law, what he has done is not as bad as molesting a kid.

I am just speculating, and none of this makes his crime(s) less, but perhaps on some level Josh is crying out for help.  He may be torn between wanting someone to catch and punish him and wanting to get away with it all.  Maybe the best thing that could happen to him would be prison and secular counseling—if only he can let go of his need to conceal and seem better than he is.

Just thinking aloud here.  I am not excusing him in any way.

[Dandruff]

9 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I mean it was going to come out, eventually. But when the first thing you say to an officer is "haha, what, did someone download child porn or something?" you can't even pretend to be surprised when it does.

I think he panicked, tried to appear cooperative by agreeing to chat with the agents, then kept talking in the hopes of finding out what they had.  He's probably wishing multiple times a day that he had kept his mouth shut.

[Nike]

5 hours ago, Dandruff said:

I think he panicked, tried to appear cooperative by agreeing to chat with the agents, then kept talking in the hopes of finding out what they had.  He's probably wishing multiple times a day that he had kept his mouth shut.

Or in Moochelle's version, he cooperated with the agents because he has a servant's heart, thanks to the top notch Christian upbringing he received. 

[TN-peach]

17 hours ago, Dandruff said:

I think he panicked, tried to appear cooperative by agreeing to chat with the agents, then kept talking in the hopes of finding out what they had.  He's probably wishing multiple times a day that he had kept his mouth shut.

This is why you don't talk to the police.  "I want my lawyer" and you leave if you are not in custody.  GO! (That is the attorney in me). The snarker in me to this situation only "ha,ha, ha, ha, ha... that's what you get for talking to the police."

 

 

[EmCatlyn]

3 hours ago, TN-peach said:

This is why you don't talk to the police.  "I want my lawyer" and you leave if you are not in custody.  GO! (That is the attorney in me). The snarker in me to this situation only "ha,ha, ha, ha, ha... that's what you get for talking to the police."

 

 

But there was enough evidence that even if he hadn’t talked, the police would have arrested him eventually. 

I do agree that he shouldn’t have talked and that people shouldn’t talk to the police, but they had a strong case even if he hadn’t almost admitted his guilt. 

[mpheels]

They had a strong case regardless, but Josh’s commentary undermines the attempt to create reasonable doubt because others had access to the computer.

[patsymae]

5 hours ago, TN-peach said:

This is why you don't talk to the police.  "I want my lawyer" and you leave if you are not in custody.  GO! (That is the attorney in me). The snarker in me to this situation only "ha,ha, ha, ha, ha... that's what you get for talking to the police."

 

 

Not an attorney, but that's what I always told my kid and tell my grandkids (no, nothing like a Smuggar situation.) Don't argue with police, don't engage them. Yes sir, no sire, I want a lawyer, and that's it. I think the first thing any lawyer tells their clients, whether its a speeding ticker or a nurder charge, is shut up and let me do the talking.

2 hours ago, mpheels said:

They had a strong case regardless, but Josh’s commentary undermines the attempt to create reasonable doubt because others had access to the computer.

Is there any legal jeopardy attached if you know someone else is using your computer to download child porn and you don't stop it or report it? 

[DalmatianCat]

2 hours ago, patsymae said:

Not an attorney, but that's what I always told my kid and tell my grandkids (no, nothing like a Smuggar situation.) Don't argue with police, don't engage them. Yes sir, no sire, I want a lawyer, and that's it. I think the first thing any lawyer tells their clients, whether its a speeding ticker or a nurder charge, is shut up and let me do the talking.

That’s exactly the advice Brian Laundrie’s lawyer gave the Laundrie family and they followed it. I think the way that whole family has behaved is reprehensible from a moral standpoint, but it is a good legal strategy.

Edited September 22, 2021 by DalmatianCat
Clarity

[xenobia]

Can I ask something not related to the trial? (don't know if this thread is just for that - if so, feel free to ignore). 

I wonder if Anna had her baby? They announced on April 24'th, and by then they already knew that the baby was a girl. The announcement was 22 weeks ago. She must have been at least 14 weeks pregnant by then, since they knew it was a girl (going by what I know of diagnostics, but I could be wrong here). That would make her at least 36 weeks pregnant today. And that's the minimum. 

JB&M and the 6 youngest D-kids have been on vacation. Would they go out of town that close to Anna's due date? I'm not 100% sure that Anna would announce the birth this time, considering... everything. 

[Four is Enough]

Oh, if Anna thinks she has one sympathetic person, she'll announce.

I sure hope she didn't go to where Josh is to HAVE the baby, so he could be part of it... that would be taking hospitality a bit too far...