Josh & Anna Smuggar: A Series of Unfortunate Events

[Trillium]

Fuck off JB. JOSH DIDN’T COME TO YOU! Jill told you you son of a bitch. Fuck right off with pretending you don’t remember your children were molested. If he was protecting the girls he would say out of respect to their privacy he didn’t want to talk about it. Instead his arrogant ass face lies and makes Josh look like a 4 year old who confessed to playing doctor. Fuck all of them. 

[Ljohnson1987]

When JimBob or Josh lies on the stand...

 

Michelle: "Can you spell perjury? P-e-r-j-u-r-y".

I wonder how the Duggars' would've reacted if a daughter was doing what Josh did to a son. Would they protect her? Probably not. Jill is a hero. No one should shun her. 

[JoanArc]

Quote

Me too.  I have a bad feeling about this.  We're all so sure he'll get jail time.  I'm afraid something will go awry and he won't be fully punished for his crimes and be put back out in public.

I put my faith in the feds. THEY DON'T LOSE. Especially to Duggar-types.

[GeeGolly]

I thought it was both. Josh came forward on his own a couple of times and Jill told on him once. Am I remember this incorrectly?

Edited November 29, 2021 by GeeGolly

[merylinkid]

JB pissing of the judge is not going to help his son.   How a judge rules in a case affects what the jury ultimately has as evidence to deliberate over.   The judge can make some very unfavorable but valid rulings against Josh.   He can also rule that JB has to testify and then let JB piss the jury off himself.   Which will in turn want to convict his son.   

[Rootbeer]

8 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

I thought it was both. Josh came forward on his a couple of times and Jill told on him once. Am I remember this incorrectly?

That's what I remember.  Josh supposedly molested his sisters while they slept and were unaware of it.  He confessed after the first time, but then did it again and confessed to that, too.  Since the girls were supposedly asleep, Jill couldn't have reported it.  

I think that Jill is the one who told JB and M after Josh molested the 5 year old in the living room while the other kids were around.  She might've also witnessed the laundry room assault on another girl or heard about it from the victim and told the parents.

In any event, it is very clear that JB is going to do his best not to cooperate on the stand.  Let him try, I have a feeling the jury will see through it and realize that JB knows Josh is more than capable of downloading and watching CSA.

[galaxygirl76]

Didn't he and Meechelle do an interview with Megan Kelly too? Was this discussed because I'm sure if it was the prosecution likely has that interview ready to go.

[satrunrose]

42 minutes ago, Churchhoney said:

"During his testimony, Jim Bob repeatedly said he couldn't remember the details of Josh's admissions that he had touched the victims, identified during the proceeding as Jane Does 1 through 4."

 https://people.com/tv/josh-duggar-child-porn-case-jim-bob-subpoenaed-to-testify/

I would be so delirious with joy if Jana, Jessa, Jinger and Joy got angry enough about this to storm the TTH and demand hush money of equal value to the money being spent on Josh's legal fees...each! 

[Trillium]

20 minutes ago, Rootbeer said:

That's what I remember.  Josh supposedly molested his sisters while they slept and were unaware of it.  He confessed after the first time, but then did it again and confessed to that, too.  Since the girls were supposedly asleep, Jill couldn't have reported it.  

I think that Jill is the one who told JB and M after Josh molested the 5 year old in the living room while the other kids were around.  She might've also witnessed the laundry room assault on another girl or heard about it from the victim and told the parents.

In any event, it is very clear that JB is going to do his best not to cooperate on the stand.  Let him try, I have a feeling the jury will see through it and realize that JB knows Josh is more than capable of downloading and watching CSA.

Ok I thought it was the other way around, that Jill told first. But regardless, he doesn’t get credit for confessing like JB was alluding too. Like oh yeah he did it but he confessed! On his own! NBD judge! 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Trillium

[Quilt Fairy]

Bobye Holt appears to have a better memory:

Quote

The other witness, Bobye, more specifically recalled that Josh repeatedly admitted, in 2003 and in 2005, to inappropriately touching four Jane Does over and under their clothes.

 

[GeeGolly]

Maybe we can keep the talk of the 4 (+1) survivors of the molestations to a minimum and not question their stories. Josh and this trial will give us plenty to talk about and snark about.

This post is not aimed at anyone, nor meant to be offensive.

[iwantcookies]

Bobye is bowbye to me! It’s probably pronounced Bobby 😂

[Heathen]

I've always read Bobbye as Bob-aye, or Bob-eye. What an awful spelling. 

Enjoy your trial, Smuggar. You piece of trash. 

[Mindthinkr]

29 minutes ago, satrunrose said:

I would be so delirious with joy if Jana, Jessa, Jinger and Joy got angry enough about this to storm the TTH and demand hush money of equal value to the money being spent on Josh's legal fees...each! 

I wouldn’t go to TTH. I’d hate the pressure they would try to exert on me to settle down and conform. Whatever techniques they have been using with these kids to keep them quiet all these years. I’d call and tell him in no uncertain terms that I’d be going to the press with the real story if his wallet didn’t open up. Call them damages. 

[zoomama]

22 minutes ago, iwantcookies said:

Bobye is bowbye to me! It’s probably pronounced Bobby 😂

i read it as bobbie

[CandyCaneTree]

Is it Blobs idea that if the girls were sleeping then it didn't happen? 

3 minutes ago, zoomama said:

i read it as bobbie

I read it as Bob Eye.

[wait.what]

I keep getting flashbacks to Casey Anthony. 
Despite everything, she walked…

 

could his defense pull it off?

 

[GeeGolly]

1 minute ago, wait.what said:

I keep getting flashbacks to Casey Anthony. 
Despite everything, she walked…

 

could his defense pull it off?

Pure insanity, her being found not guilty!

[SunnyBeBe]

4 hours ago, hathorlive said:

 

In my experience, it's universally accepted that the children depicted were harmed and by downloading the content, you are revictimizing them.  The defense can argue that the children were actors and it's all fake but that doesn't mean the jury will accept it. Just because you  scream "fake news" doesn't mean it's not real.  The defense puts out all sorts of crazy excuses hoping something sticks.  I've never seen a jury buy that argument but to be fair, I've not seen that argument much in federal court.

I’m not familiar with the material JD is charged with possessing, obtaining, etc. but are you saying that the children depicted were not real children?  Or that they were not abused?  Just confused.

[Mindthinkr]

I’m not liking this negative thinking about him getting off (no pun intended). 
I'm more into When he’s convicted. 

[emmawoodhouse]

So that old dirty bastard basically perjured himself to protect his reputation. Threw his daughters under the bus yet again. 

I hope the judge allows Bobye's testimony. As I noted earlier, she was NOT clergy. Not even close. I hope the feds can do some research on the structure of IFB churches tonight and bring that in front of Judge Brooks.

[libgirl2]

24 minutes ago, wait.what said:

I keep getting flashbacks to Casey Anthony. 
Despite everything, she walked…

 

could his defense pull it off?

 

My aunt would stay over with my parents when my cousin was out of town.  My mom and her would get up and my dad would make them coffee. They would spend half the day in their pjs watching the court proceedings.   All of them are gone now, but damn.... my mom knows just what happened! She has to be thrilled.

[woodscommaelle]

1 hour ago, iwantcookies said:

Bobye is bowbye to me! It’s probably pronounced Bobby 😂

He probably goes by Ye. 😉 I don’t know who he is though. Can someone please fill me in?

 Also, does Josh HAVE to take the stand? Do his sisters? (I don’t know how any of this works).

[Churchhoney]

1 hour ago, wait.what said:

I keep getting flashbacks to Casey Anthony. 
Despite everything, she walked…

 

could his defense pull it off?

 

There are many many kinds of criminal cases. But when you compare them, just as in any other realm of life, you'll get more sensible answers if you try to compare things that have some similarities. 

Casey Anthony's was a case involving a wildly different crime and a wildly different kind of crime. With evidence of many kinds, with very little that was straightfforward to prove. Like many if not all murders, there were many many unique things about that case. Many things depended on humans testifying to things that were not at all cut-and-dried. And that's always a source of doubt for the juries. 

By contrast, Josh's is quite a generic case. These particular prosecutors and LE folks, and the judge, have won numerous guilty pleas and convictions in virtually identical-to-this cases over the past few years. They've been through this exact process, using literally the exact same investigatory tools, many times. So have DOJ offices around the country, because the case is part of national program of prosecuting people for these exact crimes. LE and federal prosecutors know how to prosecute this particular kind of case. 

Unlike Casey Anthony's case, Josh's is a case that has many factual and technical pieces of evidence. I've been on a lot of juries and I know for a fact that such pieces of evidence are not where juries' main doubts come from. That kind of exhibit has an explanation, there's a lot that's black and white about it, much of it is clearly not subjective. Each juror can look at it and examine it again and again. Those exhibits will be in the jury room. So no matter what anybody says, that kind of evidence raises fewer questions for jurors than the multiple kinds of evidence they had in the Anthony trial, and definitely raises fewer questions than human witnesses do. And while they're talking with potential human witnesses now, it's not at all clear that they'll call many of them during the actual trial. This trial really isn't going to proceed like the Anthony trial in almost any way. 

So is something like Anthony a good comparison for this trial? Or are the many trials this court has conducted on identical charges to Josh's charges a better comparison? Seems to me that's pretty obvious. Comparing two things that are very much alike is probably going to give you a better idea of likely outcomes than comparing things that are extremely dissimilar. 

of course, anything is "possible." Most anything we can think of in the whole world is "possible." But does that mean everything is equally likely? Of course not. What's likeliest here is that this case will proceed more like the numerous other cases with the exact same procedures and kinds of evidence and government teams that have already happened in this very court. And that it'll proceed less like the Casey Anthony, which which is very very very different from it. 

So....Yeah, of course it's possible that he'll get the Casey Anthony result. Because just about anything is at least remotely possible. But it's way way way way more likely that he'll get the result more similar to those the other guys that came to this court in the past few years facing the exact same charges got.....Guilty. With about five to seven and a half years of prison time

It's a terrible waste of mental energy to worry much about things that reason tells us are only remotely "possible," I think.  Because most of the time we're going to get the results that are "likely." Since nobody here seems to even know Josh Duggar, I think our mental health is much better served by remembering that for his case, history provides the odds -- and the odds are that he'll probably end with a moderate prison sentence. 

And if the remote possibility does come true, well, there's plenty of time to fret about it then......Our worrying about that right now isn't going to help a damn thing. 

  

Edited November 30, 2021 by Churchhoney

[sue450]

1 minute ago, woodscommaelle said:

He probably goes by Ye. 😉 I don’t know who he is though. Can someone please fill me in?

 Also, does Josh HAVE to take the stand? Do his sisters? (I don’t know how any of this works).

Bobye is a she she is the wife of  jim holt  the 2 families were friends 

[sue450]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

Pure insanity, her being found not guilty!

I don't see how after he said to the feds who showed up at the car lot "why are you here was someone watching child porn?"  

[iwantcookies]

4 minutes ago, sue450 said:

Bobye is a she she is the wife of  jim holt  the 2 families were friends 

Wait what? Lol I thought Bobye was a he. 

[Zella]

I feel compelled to act like a redneck translator here, as I sometimes do for my coworker from Guatemala when she comes face to face with Arkansas weirdness. Bobye is just basically an adventurous version of Bobbie for a girl. LOL [But I still totally read it as rhyming with Kanye.]

Edited November 30, 2021 by Zella

[iwantcookies]

https://people.com/tv/josh-duggar-family-friend-emotional-testimony-court-hearing/

Josh is a sick guy! JB is a liar. 

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by iwantcookies

[iwantcookies]

Well when I thought my opinion of JB couldn’t get any lower... It did… what a horrible father to his daughters. 

[CandyCaneTree]

8 minutes ago, iwantcookies said:

https://people.com/tv/josh-duggar-family-friend-emotional-testimony-court-hearing/

He is a sick guy!

 

If he's not a chauvinist then I'm the Virgin Mary.

[Zella]

So, according to Bobye Holt's testimony in that latest People article, one of the girls said she woke up when Josh was touching her and hit him, and he called her a snitch. That was certainly never covered in that Megyn Kelly interview farce where they claimed the girls didn't even know they were being assaulted when asleep. And when Bobye tried to talk to his parents about it, they brushed her off. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Zella

[quarks]

1 hour ago, Churchhoney said:

"During his testimony, Jim Bob repeatedly said he couldn't remember the details of Josh's admissions that he had touched the victims, identified during the proceeding as Jane Does 1 through 4."

 https://people.com/tv/josh-duggar-child-porn-case-jim-bob-subpoenaed-to-testify/

So....JB is lying here., which to my mind makes him an even worse jerk than I knew he was....or he was utterly traumatized by Josh's molestation of the girls, which is possible, but more than I ever would have given him credit for and quite different, to my mind, from the stuff he claimed in his tv interview.....or he truly didn't give a flying fuck about his young daughters being molested because that's just how frigging selfish he is. ... ..... In any of the three cases -- disturbing. 

Is that just me?  

ETA: I don't think this story'll really be great for JB's career (of course, we know now he apparently has a huge nest egg, so maybe that doesn't matter, but still....).....Do you really wanna buy a used car or a flipped house from this guy? Do you think you can trust a word he says about a crack in the chassis....or about the septic tank? 

As the judge correctly noted, JB is in a very difficult position here. If he repeats the details of Josh's confession in court, the chances of Josh being found guilty - with all of the potential impacts to JB's reputation and ambitions - increase.  If he tries to claim that Josh never admitted to any of this, the prosecution can easily impeach him with the Megyn Kelly interview, and potentially bring up perjury charges - with all of the potential impacts to JB's reputation and ambitions. If he tries to say he doesn't remember - well, as we're seeing, he runs the risk of looking as if he's either lying, or that he doesn't care that four of his daughters were molested - with all the potential risks to his reputation and ambitions.

I can't think of any approach that would have allowed him to squirm out untouched.

My sympathy is limited.

I do agree that that the Duggar family incomes are going to take at least a temporary hit from this, regardless of the outcome - not just from the legal fees, but from the very real tendency of people to avoid spending money at places/people associated with extremely notorious crimes. 

#

20 minutes ago, woodscommaelle said:

He probably goes by Ye. 😉 I don’t know who he is though. Can someone please fill me in?

 Also, does Josh HAVE to take the stand? Do his sisters? (I don’t know how any of this works).

Josh has a Fifth Amendment right against self-discrimination, and he's not trying to plead self-defense, so he doesn't have to take the stand. My guess is that his lawyers have advised him not to.

As far as I know, his sisters haven't been called as witnesses, so I don't think they are going to testify in this case.

But, they may be testifying in the case that starts right after this one, and which will be presided over by the same judge, since that's their civil lawsuit. I am braced for tabloids to confuse the two trials - it's a fairly easy mistake to make, I think.

[quarks]

(reads the second People article, about Bobye Holt's testimony, and this comment)

Quote

"I'm not a male chauvinist," Jim Bob said. "My wife is wiser than I am."

.....

.....

....yeah, I don't really have a response for this. 

[Lady Whistleup]

I'm sending warm thoughts to Jill, Jessa, Joy, and Jinger tonight. Because while they're not perfect people it must hurt so much to continually be reminded that your father doesn't give a crap about you and will always protect his awful, sociopath son over you. This is awful. :( 

[Tdoc72]

7 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

As much as I agree with you, I think the argument is because he wasn't present, he didn't necessarily harm them. 

If this was the case, no one wiild ever be guilty of possession. That’s the crime he’s accused of. 

3 hours ago, quarks said:

People Magazine has some more details on today's evidentiary hearing. Apparently Jim Bob was not feeling overly cooperative, and had to be told by a judge that as a witness, he could not make objections:

https://people.com/tv/josh-duggar-child-porn-case-jim-bob-subpoenaed-to-testify/

 

I would’ve paid big $$ to see this go down. 

1 hour ago, emmawoodhouse said:

So that old dirty bastard basically perjured himself to protect his reputation. Threw his daughters under the bus yet again. 

I hope the judge allows Bobye's testimony. As I noted earlier, she was NOT clergy. Not even close. I hope the feds can do some research on the structure of IFB churches tonight and bring that in front of Judge Brooks.

I’m assuming that’s why they didn’t call Mr. Holt. Much better to argue that the Mrs wasn’t clergy. 

22 minutes ago, iwantcookies said:

https://people.com/tv/josh-duggar-family-friend-emotional-testimony-court-hearing/

Josh is a sick guy! JB is a liar. 

 

Anyone else find it weird that the meeting between Josh, his parents & the Holts was in their bedroom?  So weird. 

10 minutes ago, Zella said:

So, according to Bobye Holt's testimony in that latest People article, one of the girls said she woke up when Josh was touching her and hit him, and he called her a snitch. That was certainly never covered in that Megyn Kelly interview farce where they claimed the girls didn't even know they were being assaulted when asleep. And when Bobye tried to talk to his parents about it, they brushed her off. 

I’d love to know what else happened at the Holts where they made him leave. She said it wasn’t related but I’m so curious. 

[ginger90]

A short clip from 2015:

 

 

https://www.today.com/video/josh-duggar-s-parents-on-molestation-we-felt-like-failures-43198021929

[Zella]

3 minutes ago, Tdoc72 said:

I’d love to know what else happened at the Holts where they made him leave. She said it wasn’t related but I’m so curious. 

I wondered about that too. I also found it interesting that the relationship between their daughter and Josh was terminated the day he initially admitted the molestations to them and that she still remembered the day--March 30, 2003. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Zella

[CalicoKitty]

The Holts must be more particular than the Kellers.  Maybe they didn't think marrying their daughter off to a child molester was such a good idea.

[Zella]

1 minute ago, CalicoKitty said:

The Holts must be more particular than the Kellers.  Maybe they didn't think marrying their daughter off to a child molester was such a good idea.

I used to not believe that the Duggars actually told the Kellers what had happened--I'd assumed they'd told a very censored version--but I'm sort of reevaluating that now. 

[Trillium]

Good lord. That second article is worse. I believe Bobye’s recount of events. One doesn’t forget something like that. 
 

It had been happening for years. Many times. And JB and Michelle did fucking nothing. Nothing. And when confronted, she said they didn’t want to hear it. Fuck them.

Oh and there’s this gem from JB in the article too: 

"We tried to handle things in house," he said, continuing, "It was a very difficult time in our family's life." He did not elaborate further in his testimony. 

Josh, he insisted, "had crossed some line right at that age of curiosity, at 14, your hormones are kicking in."

MOST TEENAGERS DO NOT MOLEST PEOPLE! Fuck off with your “hormones” excuse. I wish they could prosecute JB and Michelle. We knew they failed the girls, but wow. And to STILL be defending Josh is just     unforgivable. I hope they lose everything. 

[CalicoKitty]

I wonder what the Kellers are really thinking right now?  I wonder if there is ANY possibility that they realize the gravity of the situation and might step in to help their daughter and grandchildren.  But maybe I am thinking too rationally and normally.

[Zella]

4 minutes ago, CalicoKitty said:

I wonder what the Kellers are really thinking right now?  I wonder if there is ANY possibility that they realize the gravity of the situation and might step in to help their daughter and grandchildren.  But maybe I am thinking too rationally and normally.

I think you're thinking like a normal, rational person. I imagine they buy into the same narrative Jim Bob apparently has about unfair persecution of the Duggar family. I am not inclined to believe much of what Jim Bob says, but they have previously claimed the Kellers (as in parents and Anna) were told about Josh before Anna married him, and they were apparently fine with it. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Zella

[SusanM]

15 minutes ago, Trillium said:

MOST TEENAGERS DO NOT MOLEST PEOPLE!

One of the saddest defenses of Josh was put out by one of his sisters who insisted that what he did happened in most families.  I doubt she googled this information  - she was parroting the party line - but how sad if these girls have genuinely come to believe that what happened to them was a normal part of growing up in a family with brothers.

Edited November 30, 2021 by SusannahM

[CalicoKitty]

2 minutes ago, Zella said:

I think you're thinking like a normal, rational person. I imagine they buy into the same narrative Jim Bob apparently has about unfair persecution of the Duggar family. I am not inclined to believe much of what Jim Bob says, but they have previously claimed the Kellers (as in parents and Anna) were told about Josh before Anna married him, and they were apparently fine with it. 

I hope the Kellers pay attention to the information coming out now, and that they realize they were lied to.  (But who am I kidding?) This whole situation is so, so sad for his own family.  I just hope his own children, and his nieces, are safe.

[Zella]

2 minutes ago, CalicoKitty said:

I hope the Kellers pay attention to the information coming out now, and that they realize they were lied to.  (But who am I kidding?) This whole situation is so, so sad for his own family.  I just hope his own children, and his nieces, are safe.

Honestly, I am not even sure they were lied to. I used to think that, but I was absolutely shocked how much information the Holts were given on what Josh had done, not only from JB and Michelle but also Josh himself. So, I don't rule out that the Kellers were told the exact same thing the Holts were and went into the whole thing with eyes wide open. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Zella

[CandyCaneTree]

I wish that I could be a spectator at the trial because I think that Blob is going to try to turn the trial into a 3 ring circus.

[GeeGolly]

3 minutes ago, Zella said:

Honestly, I am not even sure they were lied to. I used to think that, but I was absolutely shocked how much information the Holts were given on what Josh had done, not only from JB and Michelle but also Josh himself. So, I don't rule out that the Kellers were told the exact same thing the Holts were and went into the whole thing with eyes wide open. 

I don't know, I still think they might have gotten the light version. It was three years later and Josh was more saying "I have a past" than confessing to the Kellers, like he was to Mrs Holt.

[emmawoodhouse]

9 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

One of the saddest defenses of Josh was put out by one of his sisters who insisted that what he did happened in most families.  I doubt she googled this information  - she was parroting the party line - but how sad if these girls have genuinely come to believe that what happened to them was a normal part of growing up in a family with brothers.

Yes, that was Jill during the Megyn Kelly interview. She claimed that this activity happened in "2 out of 3 families." Her statistic came straight from Gothard. 

[Jeeves]

Just now, Zella said:

Honestly, I am not even sure they were lied to. I used to think that, but I was absolutely shocked how much information the Holts were given on what Josh had done, not only from JB and Michelle but also Josh himself. So, I don't rule out that the Kellers were told the exact same thing the Holts were and went into the whole thing with eyes wide open. 

And of course the Holts connived with JB and Michelle to keep a lid on Josh's CRIMINAL conduct. To be precise, since Josh was a juvenile at the time (aged 14 or 15, IIRC), his commission of acts which would be crimes if committed by an adult and would subject Josh to a juvenile delinquency case at the time if reported. They were not victimless crimes; tiny little girls were assaulted. At least one of them was aware what was happening and even fought back.

So, fuck 'em all, IMO: the Duggars parents, Mr. and Mrs. Holt, and Mr. and Mrs. Keller. They knew and connived to keep it "in the family" of their church circles. 

And a huge tip of the hat to InTouch for blowing open the story when they did. If they hadn't? This case would be going through the courts with the Duggars and Kellers and Holts and other elders of the Duggars' church(es), sitting on the secrets.