LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas police have destroyed a record outlining a nearly decade-old investigation into reality TV star Josh Duggar, a spokesman said Friday, a day after the 27-year-old resigned his role with a prominent conservative Christian group amid reports about sexual misconduct allegations from when he was a juvenile.
“Sexual misconduct” is putting it a great deal too politely. The allegations are that he groped his younger sisters.
The reports are also that his parents did nothing about it, and that his sisters were expected to “forgive” him and leave it at that.
And that the Duggars have been telling the world how fabulous they are because Jesus via a popular reality tv show for the past seven years. Amid those reports, the records have been destroyed. What a squalid tank of shit all this is.
The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which obtained the offense report before its destruction, reports Duggar was accused of fondling five girls in 2002 and 2003.
Other outlets have it too.
Duggar issued an apology Thursday on Facebook for unspecified bad behavior as a youth and resigned his role as executive director for FRC Action, the tax-exempt legislative action arm of the Washington-based Family Research Council.
“I would do anything to go back to those teen years and take different actions,” Duggar wrote. “In my life today, I am so very thankful for God’s grace, mercy and redemption.”
Fuck you. Fuck you you godbothering homophobic sister-groping creep. It’s not about you, it’s about the girls you groped.
Springdale Police began investigating Duggar in 2006 when officers were alerted to a letter containing the allegations that was found in a book lent by a family friend to someone else.
The report, originally published by tabloid In Touch Weekly, states that a member of Harpo Studios, the producer of Oprah Winfrey’s then show, received an email containing the allegations before the family was set to appear in 2006.
The tipster warned producers against allowing the Duggars on the show and studio staff members faxed a copy of the email to Arkansas State Police.
In 2006. In 2008 that revolting tv show started, and the Duggars have been lapping up the money and attention for seven years, after having successfully concealed a series of crimes against their own god damn daughters.
Springdale Police spokesman Scott Lewis said Judge Stacey Zimmerman ordered the 2006 offense report destroyed Thursday. Zimmerman didn’t return a request for comment on Friday.
“The judge ordered us yesterday to expunge that record,” Lewis said, adding that similar records are typically kept indefinitely. “As far as the Springdale Police Department is concerned this report doesn’t exist.”
God’s will be done, eh?
Several Arkansas Republicans have rallied behind the Duggar family, which is still engrained in state politics. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar attended the kickoff event earlier this month for Republican presidential nominee Mike Huckabee, who supported the family in a Facebook post on Friday.
“Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed–not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims,” Huckabee wrote.
Oh really. And Huckabee knows that how exactly?
Arkansas Sen. Bart Hester said Josh Duggar, who he has known for about five years, has been open and honest about the incident with wife, family and friends. State Sen. Jon Woods, who has known the Duggar family since 2005, said the family had put the issue behind them.
“It’s between the family members and was addressed a long time ago but it’s new to the public,” Woods said. “The family had time to heal and now the public needs time to heal.”
No, you know what we need? An end to lectures on morality from Republican theocrats.
I’ve been following this on Slate. I feel there’s another conservative hypocrisy that is being overlooked.
Josh Duggar in his statement he seems keen to remind the world his moral and legal culpability were reduced because of his age. It seems his conservative friends are keen to cut him some slack. Not so keen when the young offender is African American. Or mentally impaired.
“Touch Weekly” reporting groping *snicker*
“the fact that the victims wanted this ” – THAT’s the important part here.
Just an aside, in such screamingly dysfunctional families, it’s commonplace for abuse, especially sexual abuse, to travel from generation from generation. It’s entirely possible that Josh didn’t get the bright idea to grope his younger sisters on his own, you know. It’s entirely possible that someone else within the family, perhaps his father or a relative or a family friend, sexually abused Josh before all this started. Not that that reduces or removes Josh’s culpability, but, rather, let’s keep in mind that there may be far more guilty persons than just this one.
This vile and stupid statement should be the end of Huckabee’s presidential ambitions. But being the Republican party, i guess not?
That’s Arkansas “law enforcement” for you. Why else is Justin Harris not yet charged with accessory to rape for providing victims to a man he knew was a pedophile?
Fixed it for you?
Anyone else thinking this whole story about the note being used as a bookmark until it was ‘forgotten’ about and the book accidently lent to somebody outside the family, might actually translate more believably as, “sexual abuse victim in controlling cult uses book lending to send message to outside world for help”?
I hate to say it, but: Good.
Reports are indicating this was done at the request of one of the victims, in fear that the unredacted police report would be leaked and her name revealed. The identities of most of the victims have been splashed all over the media – not their names, but enough info to fuel speculation – and their privacy violated, even though one of them is reportedly still a minor. What’s more, from the very beginning, their own family handled this in the exact opposite way of a victim-centered approach. Any counseling they received probably included the idea that victims of sexual abuse can be partly responsible for their own abuse, and that harboring any fear, anger, etc toward the offender over the long term is just “bitterness” that represents the victim choosing to destroy their own soul. The police report includes many of the victims saying they forgave Duggar. “Forgiveness” isn’t optional or given freely in these types of subcultures; it is forced.
If a destroyed police report is the only way one of these young women can claw back a tiny amount of control in a situation that was NEVER handled in a way that centered their well-being, I say, fine. Of course, it may also serve to benefit the cover-up of Duggar’s crimes, and the victim may have been encouraged to request the destruction of this report by the Duggars in order to continue the cover-up.
But that’s why this situation is “a squalid tank of shit” and there really are no good options. I don’t envy the judge who had to make this decision.