Josh Duggar is successfully avoiding his sentencing… for a while at least!
On Saturday, the 19 Kids and Counting alum petitioned a court to postpone his April 5 sentencing by at least 30 days to give him and his team more time to prepare. Um… His conviction on child porn charges was in December. Five months wasn’t enough time to prepare a statement? They certainly had time to come up with an argument about why to delay…
So what was the argument? His filing claimed COVID-19 restrictions in the Washington County Jail in Arkansas, where the 34-year-old is currently staying, were making it more challenging to have meetings with his attorney. Via The Sun, court documents requesting the change read:
“Because of certain reasonable Covid-19 precautions understandably instituted at the jail at which Duggar is being detained, it has been more difficult scheduling meetings with Duggar than during more ordinary times.”
His defense team also stated that they were running up to scheduling issues with an unrelated case, so a postponement would be ideal for them.
Related: Josh Duggar Ditched By Family On First Prison Birthday Following Child Porn Conviction
Surprisingly, after a few days deliberating, Judge Timothy L. Brooks has officially approved the request — and given Josh even more time than he asked for!
According to The Sun, the judge scheduled the hearing for May 25 — that’s two months from now. That’s certainly a lot more time to go over the details of the case, some of which have already been put on blast.
As Perezcious readers know, on December 9, Josh was found guilty of possessing and receiving child pornography. His lawyers have been anything but idle since then. A month later, Duggar’s team filed documents requesting an acquittal or a new trial. Lead defense attorney Justin Gelfand asked for an acquittal in the case pursuant to a technical federal legal rule. If that motion was to be declined, he requested a new trial for his client. And if neither of these could be accepted, he asked that the count of possession of child pornography be dismissed, claiming that the prosecution had “failed to adduce any evidence that Duggar ‘knew that the visual depictions were of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct’” — a key component to convict someone of each count. Phew. That’s quite a claim considering the jury felt pretty darn convinced (and so did we based the mountain of evidence that we saw)!
Related: Josh Duggar’s First FBI Child Porn Interview Released, And WOW Does He Sound Guilty!
Gelfand also brought into question testimony from an employee who allegedly “had access to the car lot and the HP desktop computer during certain relevant time periods.” The judge has not submitted a ruling on this yet.
For now, including both charges, Josh is facing around 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count — though the sentences would almost certainly be served concurrently so we’re talking about 20 years total. The judge will determine the exact number of years based on the Federal Sentencing Table, which combines factors like criminal history and the age of victims to determine an appropriate sentencing. Experts have already presumed Josh will get the maximum sentence given his presence in the spotlight. We guess now we’ll have to wait until May to find out.
Thoughts?
[Image via Washington County Sheriff’s Office]
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