Reality TV’s Joseph Duggar pleads not guilty to molestation

The former child star of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting appeared in a Florida court on Tuesday on charges of molesting a 9-year-old girl in 2020. Bay County Circuit Judge Tracy Smith issued a total bond of $600,000 for all of Duggar’s Florida charges and banned him from having any unsupervised contact with minors.

Court records showed Duggar pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and demanded a jury trial about two days before his initial appearance. The 31-year-old appeared to make bail and was no longer listed as a Bay County inmate by Tuesday night. He’s scheduled to be back in Florida court for an April 20 arraignment, according to court records.

Didn’t he already admit to the alleged molestation? An affidavit from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office reported that Joseph admitted to the molestation when initially confronted by the victim’s father days before his arrest. Joseph repeated that admission on a separate phone call with the victim’s father and a detective, according to the filing.

Joseph and his wife, Kendra, are also facing several charges of false imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child in their home state of Arkansas, according to the Tontitown Police Department. Kendra was arrested on those charges when police searched the couple’s home soon after Joseph’s initial arrest.

Have the parents commented about the new charges? Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar released a statement to several entertainment outlets about two weeks after the arrest. The pair described being heartbroken over the situation and remained focused on supporting Kendra and their four children.

The Duggar family rose to fame in the mid-2010s from the hit reality TV show that showcased their fundamentalist Christian lifestyle. The network canceled the show in 2015 after 10 seasons, following reports that the family’s oldest son, Josh, had molested four of his sisters as a teenager.

Dig deeper: Read my previous report for more background on the case.