Disgraced reality TV star Josh Duggar was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for receiving and possessing child pornography. Duggar's legal team said that he maintains his innocence and plans to appeal the sentence. They had sought just five years of jail time, while prosecutors wanted the judge to sentence him to the maximum of 20 years behind bars.

Duggar was the star of TLC's 19 Kids and Counting, which was canceled in 2015 amid numerous allegations Duggar had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter. An investigation into the allegations was launched in 2006, but officials determined charges could not be filed because they fell outside of the statute of limitations.

After the allegations resurfaced in 2015, Duggar apologized for cheating on his wife and admitted he had a pornography addiction, for which he sought treatment.

He was arrested in 2021 after a Little Rock police detective discovered that child pornography was being shared by a computer traced to a car dealership that Duggar owned. The images were described as "the worst of the worst" by prosecutors and included graphic depictions of violence against children as young as seven.

The computer had a separate partition that was protected by the same password that Duggar used for his banking information.

"This past conduct, when viewed alongside the conduct for which he has been convicted, makes clear that Duggar has a deep-seated, pervasive, and violent sexual interest in children, and a willingness to act on that interest," federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. "There is simply no indication that Duggar will ever take the steps necessary to change this pattern of behavior and address his predilection for minor females."

Sonya Blakey