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Josh & Anna Smuggar: A Series of Unfortunate Events

maraleia

By maraleia
in Counting On

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Tikichick

Tikichick

3 minutes ago, Natalie68 said:

I would agree if Anna didn't know who she married.  She knew his history, she knew about the raid and she knew he was getting arrested if reports are true the family was expecting it.  She stayed.  She doersn't have the good sense needed to keep kids safe.

Was she informed why the raid happened?   What was she told?   Let's face it, Josh, or Josh and JB could have fobbed her off with several things that would have likely seemed reasonable to her, things that had no correlation to either reality or anything related to sexually explicit content in any way, shape or form.   Nothing happened for over a year after the raid.  No doubt in her mind that means there was nothing to find.  She could have been hearing that evidence was being manufactured against Josh during the delay.   

The telling point is how she reacts going forward in regard to Josh being around the children -- assuming he ever has that opportunity before they are adults.   She's grown up in a cult with little education, little experience and  with a limited exposure to people with different beliefs than her own.   That doesn't mean that she doesn't love her children, doesn't care for them, that they aren't bonded to her and that she would in fact knowingly place them at risk. 

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hoosier80
hoosier80

New show title: 10 to 20 Years and Counting 

MargeGunderson
MargeGunderson

Someone on Reddit just described Josh’s face as a glistening glazed ham. I am considering divorcing my husband and marrying that poster. 

doodlebug
doodlebug

Well, for many of us, it's the difference between 'imperfect' and 'non-PC' and being a criminal.  Josh is a child molester and his parents actively intervened in his situation to avoid him being punis

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HighHopes

HighHopes

27 minutes ago, Tikichick said:

The bar for that type of action is high, as it should be.  The right of parents to parent their children is one of the most fundamental rights we have as humans.  I can't think of anything I would fight harder to protect.

I am absolutely not advocating that a parent's rights are absolute without exception.   I participate in and advocate for the removal of children from their parents' custody on a regular basis, including the termination of parental rights in many cases.   At this point there is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that Anna knowingly ignored risk to her children.

I work in a similar field in Canada. I always believe the best place for children to be is with their parents, as long as they are safe and happy. Removing children will always cause harm to children so it should be avoided at all costs. 

And if children can’t be with their parents, they should be with family. However the Duggars have hidden and helped Josh in the past and I’m not convinced they won’t  in the future. So if the children have to go somewhere, I wouldn’t want it to be any of the Duggars.

I’m not saying her brother will be successful either, just that he might try. 

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Rabbittron

Rabbittron

31 minutes ago, Churchhoney said:

Plus, JB and M -- who in my opinion were a strong contributing cause to this by the way they treated Josh and treated their daughters and the other girl when this happened...and by the crap they preach about sex issues and gender roles in general -- have been all over the current show for a long time.

And in their minds, I'm sure both shows have  always been about them being role models. Any show that goes within a million miles of being role models should definitely be off the air after this. 

You're preaching to the choir of money hungry people. 

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madpsych78

madpsych78

What is the process of acquiring images and/or videos of child sexual abuse? In other words, are there more steps to follow than for adult pornography? Like, for example, videos on Porn Hub are pretty easy to access, but those have adults.

Just trying to establish that Josh had to work pretty hard to access images of child sexual abuse.  

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emmawoodhouse

emmawoodhouse

2 minutes ago, cereality said:

Random questions as I try to catch up -- what's this book that people keep referencing that Jer/Jing are writing? What's it about?

Any statements from any siblings besides Jill/Derick yesterday and Jer/Jing today? Anything from the brothers living on the compound or nearby like JD or Joseph or Josiah? Anything from the younger brothers - Justin/Jason/James/Jed/Jer?

I know back in the day JD and Joseph gave some statements re they don't want to be like their older brother/they aren't like their older brother/and Joe views JD has his oldest brother. What was that in response to? The thing with the sisters or Ashley Madison or the fact that he was sleeping with prostitutes while married to Anna?

IDK if we're allowed to ask but People etc. are saying he molested 5 girls back in the day -- I know Jill and Jessa came out and did that interview? Are the others assumed to be Joy, JInger, and ? who would the 5th be? I can't imagine Jana because they're close in age -- I imagine it was easier if his victims were much younger and he could play the older brother card; I feel like Jana has at least always had JD in her corner.

JinJer's book is highly autobiographical, with a dose of Jesus 

The 5th victim was never identified other than being a babysitter. 

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Tikichick

Tikichick

1 minute ago, HighHopes said:

I work in a similar field in Canada. I always believe the best place for children to be is with their parents, as long as they are safe and happy. Removing children will always cause harm to children so it should be avoided at all costs. 

And if children can’t be with their parents, they should be with family. However the Duggars have hidden and helped Josh in the past and I’m not convinced they won’t  in the future. So if the children have to go somewhere, I wouldn’t want it to be any of the Duggars.

I’m not saying her brother will be successful either, just that he might try. 

Another factor to consider is the sheer number of children.   Even with loving and willing families there are often not many who are able to take on that many children -- and of course the fact that there are official standards to meet in that regard will bar family members from taking that many children due to things like sleeping space, etc.   If kids can't be with their parents it's hard enough.  If they are then split from siblings the trauma multiplies.   Sure, courts will order sibling visitations in cases like this, but it's not the same and definitely not ideal for kids who are already traumatized from being removed from their home and parents.  

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cereality

cereality

2 minutes ago, madpsych78 said:

What is the process of acquiring images and/or videos of child sexual abuse? In other words, are there more steps to follow than for adult pornography? Like, for example, videos on Porn Hub are pretty easy to access, but those have adults.

Just trying to establish that Josh had to work pretty hard to access images of child sexual abuse.  

It's not that he had to work hard, those disgusting images are out there on the dark web. But yeah it isn't like adult porn; there's an entire adult porn industry that makes videos etc. by paying consenting adults to film them. It's different with kids -- what makes it illegal is that kids by statutory definition cannot consent. People have all kinds of kinky interests -- so they watch adults; true sick criminal types like Josh are the ones with interests in kids.

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JoanArc

JoanArc

15 minutes ago, Zella said:

But the reason I was reluctant to just assume his molestations were crimes of opportunity was the fact his attacks on his sisters got increasingly brazen and severe and also the ages of the victims got younger and younger. That's always seemed very damning to me. And I think deep down the Duggars know that because they always lied in public statements to avoid addressing the latter instances. 

 It really blew my mind that everyone tried to write off that story of Josh looking at porn on computers for a political campaign after he had been caught molesting.  The fact that he did that more months after atoning from his molestation crimes pretty much told me everything I needed to know about him.

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Zella

Zella

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1 minute ago, JoanArc said:

 It really blew my mind that everyone tried to write off that story of Josh looking at porn on computers for a political campaign after he had been caught molesting.  The fact that he did that more months after atoning from his molestation crimes pretty much told me everything I needed to know about him.

Yeah that's a good point. For me, it was really the fact he went after a 5 year old. There's a lot wrong about their "he was just curious about girls" excuse, but if it was actually true, teen boys who are just curious about girls aren't going to be interested in a 5 year old. 

Well, Amy is never not going to try to make something all about her. Like Harry and Meghan's interview. Lol

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JoanArc

JoanArc

1 minute ago, Zella said:

Yeah that's a good point. For me, it was really the fact he went after a 5 year old. There's a lot wrong about their "he was just curious about girls" excuse, but if it was actually true, teen boys who are just curious about girls aren't going to be interested in a 5 year old. 

 Oh, that too. I don’t wanna minimize it. But, I think a lot of people would have written that office crime of opportunity given the way they were so insular. 

The asshole never even paused a little, let alone stop doing anything.

I’d be kind of interested to know when he got access to computers after getting out of Jesus jail. I think he had a flip phone for a while? I guess he was spending days in that little car lot office doing God knows what. Jim Bob is an idiot for not building a cell in that warehouse and basically keeping him locked in there, and just dragging him out for pictures with Anna.

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Tdoc72

Tdoc72

(edited)
2 hours ago, IndianPaintbrush said:

Images of minors under the age of 12???? 🤮

His likely defense will be that the images were inadvertently downloaded. A lot will depend on how many they pulled.

I agree. And this is probably not a popular opinion: but if I were on a jury, I’d have a problem sentencing someone to jail for 20 years if they had 1-2 child photos thrown in with thousands of adults photos. One could argue that it was an accident/bad batch/whatever. And I’m definitely not saying that he (or anyone) shouldn’t face punishment.  I don’t know what an acceptable ratio wouldn’t be. 

I am not defending Josh here or anyone’s possession/receiving of inappropriate  illegal child photos.  Just trying to look at it logically.

58 minutes ago, Natalie68 said:

While we walk through fire

through this season of life. 

Edited by Tdoc72
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mynextmistake

mynextmistake

40 minutes ago, Tikichick said:

The bar for that type of action is high, as it should be.  The right of parents to parent their children is one of the most fundamental rights we have as humans.  I can't think of anything I would fight harder to protect.

I am absolutely not advocating that a parent's rights are absolute without exception.   I participate in and advocate for the removal of children from their parents' custody on a regular basis, including the termination of parental rights in many cases.   At this point there is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that Anna knowingly ignored risk to her children.

Well, sure. But this isn’t a case where someone left the kids in the car for fifteen minutes to run into the grocery store and an overzealous CPS staff member decided to go after them for neglect. It’s not even a case where a parent is being investigated for completely unknowingly letting a child abuser into their kids’ lives. 

Anna knew that as a teenager Josh *sexually abused a five year old* and not only stayed with him, but assisted his family in downplaying his conduct, continued to praise him as a spouse and father, and had more kids with him. She’s either in deep, deep denial or she truly doesn’t think sex abuse is a big deal. Either way, I think it is very unlikely that she is going to have an “ah ha!” moment now and morph into a caring, protective mother.

As I said before, *if* she is appropriately protective, meaning not only that she keeps the kids away from Josh but also that she follows all CPS recommendations regarding interviews, counseling, etc. for them, then I don’t see a reason that they should be removed from her care. I’m just deeply, deeply skeptical that this is what will happen. 

 

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WinnieWinkle

WinnieWinkle

(edited)
6 minutes ago, beckie said:

I doubt there was one or two. That could be accidental.  It's more likely there were 100s or thousands on his computers. 

I would assume that's exactly why this took so long to come out - I can't see the feds messing around with someone who may have inadvertantly downloaded an image or two.  If that were the case they'd probably have never taken it to this point.  

Edited to add: and I would assume (I hope correctly) that an adult who isn't sick would immediately delete an image like that and if they personally knew the person that they got it from they'd have reported the person to the authorities themselves.  Or at the very least cut the person who sent it to them out of their life and never looked back.  

Edited by WinnieWinkle
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cereality

cereality

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@Tdoc72 so yeah in federal cases, the issue of how many images does come up in these cases. There isn't like a threshold number or %. But generally speaking people don't get indicted if they have 1000s of adult porn images and 2 or even 10 child porn mixed in because it assumed that they didn't know what they were downloading.

For this case though remember they had to go to a grand jury first -- so in order to even get to the point there there's an indictment and an arrest, prosecutors had to go before a grand jury and prove to that jury that there's probable cause that a crime has been committed. If the grand jury didn't agree because there were 1-2 videos or whatever, we wouldn't even be at this stage.

Plus I have to assume surveillance has gotten really good as tech has good really good. If someone downloaded an accidental 10 files amongst 1000s of other downloads, surveillance can likely tell if they skipped over those images in 2 seconds or hit delete as soon as they opened them; or if they spent hours on those images.

Again not my area of practice but these cases come up a lot in fed court sadly.

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Tikichick

Tikichick

6 minutes ago, madpsych78 said:

What is the process of acquiring images and/or videos of child sexual abuse? In other words, are there more steps to follow than for adult pornography? Like, for example, videos on Porn Hub are pretty easy to access, but those have adults.

Just trying to establish that Josh had to work pretty hard to access images of child sexual abuse.  

Cases I've seen have come from things like local dating/hookup/meetup sites where officers participate for a while -- sometimes with multiple officers participating over long stretches of time as a certain persona.   Relationships are established, in some ways similar even to the ways people here get to "know" each other, become friends, etc. -- just a whole lot less benign than they do here.   Over time confidence is established and invitations happen -- hookups, media sharing.  Sometimes parents even traffic their own children.  They do a lot of sharing amongst one another of an awful lot of their favorite imagery on these sites too.

I've seen more than one case where a perp's boundaries are crossed and they've actually reported children being trafficked to the authorities.   Sometimes the perps actually have driven multiple states to get here for their "date".   

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Zella

Zella

Just now, WinnieWinkle said:

I would assume that's exactly why this took so long to come out - I can't see the feds messing around with someone who may have inadvertantly downloaded an image or two.  If that were the case they'd probably have never taken it to this point.  

Yep the feds don't play. They have 96-ish percent conviction rate for a reason. 

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BitterApple

BitterApple

(edited)

So does this mean that Josh is part of a ring? Given that the Duggar boys flip-flop around their various businesses, I'm curious as to how the Feds linked the images specifically to Josh? Or will the fact that any number of family members had access to the computer be his defense?

Edited by BitterApple
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JoanArc

JoanArc

1 minute ago, Annb67 said:

From my understanding you cannot “accidentally” download underage abuse pictures. You have to go to the dark web; and it isn’t an oops. 

 It probably depends on how borderline the images of here. Obviously, Josh is dealing in immature children so yeah is not an accident. The accidental stuff is more like a mature looking teenager who intentionally posted themselves to the web. 

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GeeGolly

GeeGolly

1 minute ago, BitterApple said:

So does this mean that Josh is part of a ring? Given that the Duggar boys flip-flop around their various businesses, I'm curious as to how the Feds linked the images specifically to Josh? 

Hmm, if they found them on a work computer, you're right, how do they know. Unless Josh had them on other devices as well maybe? I don't know, but great question.

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emmawoodhouse

emmawoodhouse

(edited)
32 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

So does this mean that Josh is part of a ring? Given that the Duggar boys flip-flop around their various businesses, I'm curious as to how the Feds linked the images specifically to Josh? 

From his car lot computer. He ran a separate lot from Jedidiah and the other brothers. That lot subsequently closed.

Edited by emmawoodhouse
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