For nearly two weeks,Josh Duggarsat in a federal courtroom in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as an array of investigators, forensic experts and a longtime family friend described him as a pedophile and secret collector of child pornography.
Beyond the occasional asides and brief hugs with his family, Duggar showed little outward reaction to the mounting case against him.
But he broke on Thursday morning.
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Josh grew visibly distraught as he and Anna, 33, spoke — his eyes tightening and face crumpling, though his mouth was covered with a mask — before he was taken out of the courtroom.
The guilty verdicts announced Thursday morning brought a sudden end to a trial that had mushroomed in length from an expected four or five days to nine,including jury selectionand a key pre-trial evidentiary hearing the day before.
With deliberations set to continue Thursday and no sign the night before that the jurors were close to a decision, the proceedings had moved into a kind of lazy limbo. A handful of reporters went in and out of the empty courtroom on Thursday morning with Judge Timothy Brooks waiting in his chambers.
Center, from left: Anna and Josh Duggar (with Josh’s defense team) enter federal court in Fayetteville, Arkansas.Backgrid
One prosecutor said he was going on a coffee run. Two of the defense attorneys chatted amiably with the press in the gallery.
The extended Duggar family had been told the night before that the deliberations could draw out andfew of them were in attendanceat the start save for Anna and Jim Bob, who told PEOPLE earlier this week he had been waiting to be cleared from a pre-trial subpoena in order to come. (The family patriarch, who is in the middle ofa Republican primary campaignfor a state Senate seat, has beenconspicuously welcoming each day, warmly greeting reporters and others in the room.)
Little insight was availableinto the jurors' thought process, though they had made one request Wednesday to re-hear certain audio evidence. (One juror also unsuccessfully asked for a calendar.) As deliberations continued into a second day, some in the courtroom noted the adage that the longer a jury considers its verdict, the better it is for the defendant’s case.
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And then shortly after 10 a.m. — some six hours into deliberations — a member of the court staff returned with an announcement: The jury was done.
A few minutes later, with the jurors back in their box and the foreman having delivered the manila envelope to Judge Brooks, he read each verdict aloud as Josh and his attorneys were seated. By then, more Duggar relatives and family supporters had trickled in.
On the first count against Josh, knowing receipt of child pornography: guilty.
On the second count, knowing possession of child pornography: guilty.
A sketch of Josh Duggar’s trial in Fayetteville, Arkansas.John Kushmaul
Judge Brooks sent the 12 jurors and two alternates home (a previous alternate already having been dismissed) with his gratitude and said that if they waited for him to conclude the court’s business, he would be down to the jury room to thank them each personally for their service.
Josh Duggar.Washington county arkansas
And last, the judge asked about Josh’s immediate detention. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Roberts said he “should be taken into custody,” while defense attorney Justin Gelfand said, “We would ask the court to exercise its discretion.”
Judge Brooks noted that Josh had been “100 percent compliant” with the terms of his release on bond but, nonetheless, the law was clear. As Brooks spoke, two U.S. marshals — sitting in the back row — crossed the courtroom to Josh, put him in handcuffs and took him away down the middle aisle.
Brooks reminded the marshals to make sure they disposed of Josh’s electronic monitoring device. It was no longer needed.
Not long after, Jim Bob and Anna — who the afternoon before had huddled in prayer with Josh as the jury began deliberating — walked out of the Fayetteville federal building in a group with other immediate family members toward an SUV waiting at the curb.
Paparazzi, daily fixtures since last Tuesday, swarmed around them.
The Duggars said nothing, and then they were gone.
source: people.com
