Josh Marhsall at Talking Points Memo:
In Touch Weekly is reporting that in 2007, when Josh Dugger was 19[,] he sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services to prevent them from making a finding against him or possibly to prevent on-going monitoring of his interactions with his sisters.
I’m writing this here in the Editor’s Blog because In Touch Weekly‘s reporting on this seems thinly sourced and, let’s be honest, In Touch Weekly is not where we normally go for industry standard reporting.
They had documents for the previous stories, but this one is just “as told to.”
According to this report, when local police decided that no crime had been committed within the three year statute of limitations, they nonetheless referred the case to Arkansas’s Families in Need of Services agency. The FNS has a different charge – not criminal culpability but protecting the welfare of children in the state. In other words, the statute of limitations wouldn’t be relevant to their ability or charge to monitor Josh Duggar since he was still living in the Duggar home with his younger sisters.
So a bit less than a year after an anonymous tipster put in motion the chain of events that led to the actual police investigation in 2006, Josh Duggar apparently sued the state to block something the state DHS was doing. This was around the time that the Duggar family reality show was moving into production for its first season in 2008.
So they probably didn’t want quite that much “reality” in their “reality show” about how fabulous they are.
Josh Duggar was apparently successful in his legal action. According to the report, the records of the lawsuit as well as the documentation which the suit was over are both sealed.
Maybe he too will be invited to speak at TAM.
It astonishes me how these people (generally guys when it comes to sex crimes, but also occasionally women when more general corruption is involved) will go ahead and put themselves forward in public positions – extreme public positions like reality TV or being the spokesperson for a national organization – in spite of having so many and massive skeletons in their closet.
I’d be scared of being found out and would keep a lower profile. The money and/or power might be tempting, but still I can’t see risking it myself. But these folks do it. It’s amazing. I guess the combination of ego and insulated living makes them think it’s okay. Mind you, when you look at how little this guy is likely to get stung by it all (judging from other such episodes) his thinking he’d get away with it isn’t just fantasy. He will. It’s almost certain this will be for him a minor and temporary issue; it may not even eliminate future earnings much less claw back any he’s gotten already.