Arkansas Online

Duggar’s porn case going to jury today

RON WOOD

FAYETTEVILLE — Josh Duggar’s federal child pornography case will go to jurors today after the defense rested its case late Tuesday afternoon and all rebuttal was completed.

Duggar, 33, of Springdale is charged in federal court with two counts involving receiving and possessing child pornography. He faces up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $250,000 on each count if convicted.

Prosecutors say child pornography was repeatedly downloaded on the computer at Duggar’s used car lot on May 14, 15 and 16, 2019; some of those were business days. A separate partition and operating system had been installed on the computer on May 13, 2019. Duggar maintains he didn’t do it.

Deputy prosecutor William Clayman hammered the defense’s computer forensic expert Tuesday morning.

Michele Bush, a computer forensic expert from Arizona,

acknowledged she found no actual evidence of hacking or a remote user on the computer used at Duggar’s car lot to download child porn. Bush could not identify which, if any, applications might have been used remotely.

In testimony Monday, Bush said evidence had led her to believe that remote access was a possibility. Bush said Tuesday that there were no longer any logs available for her to examine that would reveal such evidence and, if there were some, they no longer exist. Prosecutors questioned whether they ever existed.

Justin Gilfand, one of Duggar’s attorneys, argued the logs were not available because the government waited too long to seize Duggar’s devices and chose not to take others, including a router, that may have still contained logs.

On rebuttal Tuesday afternoon, Bush maintained she still believes that it is not only possible but “still very probable looking at everything” that someone remotely accessed Duggar’s computer at the car lot and downloaded child porn. She said Duggar’s Wi-Fi network was extremely vulnerable to outside access because of the way it was set up.

She also conceded Tuesday that child porn was actually downloaded to the computer.

Prosecutors were also critical of Bush for not being more interested in evidence showing who may have been at the car lot when the child porn was downloaded or reading transcripts of interviews Duggar had with investigators. Prosecutors say employee payroll records show only Duggar was working at the lot during the time the child porn was downloaded.

Bush said her job was to analyze the forensic evidence provided to the defense by the government. She started with dates of interest and the child porn and worked her way backward from there, Bush said.

Bush also agreed with prosecutors that someone had to be physically present in the office at the car lot to install the partition and operating system.

“That’s what the evidence tells me, it was physical presence,” Bush said.

Bush agreed with prosecutors that child porn files were downloaded and opened on the computer and viewed over a three-day period. Some were put into files but were then deleted but not sent to the trash file of the computer, she said.

Prosecutors last week presented evidence, using time stamps and geolocation data from cellphone photos and text messages, that put Duggar in the immediate vicinity of the car lot and computer every time child porn was downloaded.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that a password commonly used by Duggar was used on a partition and Linux operating system on the computer used to download child porn. A receipt from the car dealership was also found on that partition; it said the sales representative was “Josh.”

U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks cautioned Bush, out of the presence of the jury, for knowing the conclusions she wanted to reach and backing into them using speculation and possibility with the intent to confuse or mislead the jury. Brooks said he would not allow that to happen.

Brooks told jurors late Tuesday he intends to read their jury instructions this morning, the sides will present closing arguments and the case will then go to the jury.

Arkansas

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2021-12-08T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-08T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.arkansasonline.com/article/281994675783747

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