Two days after reality TV personality Joseph Duggar was arrested on suspicion of molesting a minor in Florida, Arkansas police arrested his wife, Kendra Duggar, on misdemeanor child abuse charges.
Kendra Duggar, 27, and Joseph Duggar, 31, face four counts each of endangering the welfare of a minor and second-degree false imprisonment.
According to KNWA, the Tontitown Police Department confirmed that the Duggarsโ charges in Arkansas were unrelated to Joseph Duggarโs case in Florida. The news outlet reported that Tontitown police said this separate investigation was โlaunched on the heels of the alleged incident in Florida.โ
People magazine reported that a source close to the family told the outlet that the arrest on Friday was โthe result of a home inspection, and the door locks being on the exterior of the doors. โ
A spokesperson for the family told People that the charges filed against Kendra Duggar were โtotally unrelatedโ to Joseph Duggarโs case in Florida. โSheโs not suspected or accused of participating in his alleged crime.โ
Last week, Joseph Duggar, known for the TLC series โ19 Kids and Counting,โ was arrested in Arkansas by local law enforcement on suspicion of molesting a minor in Florida, the Bay County Sheriffโs Office in Florida announced in a statement.
The Sheriffโs Office said it received a report on Wednesday of past sexual abuse involving Duggar and a 14-year-old girl. The girl alleged several incidents of abuse, including one when she was 9, police said.
The teenager, according to law enforcement, accused Duggar of molesting her in 2020 while she was vacationing with family and staying at a residence in Panama City Beach.
According to the statement, the victim said Duggar โeventually apologizedโ for the abuse. Duggar also โadmitted his actions to the girlโs father and to Tontitown detectivesโ in Arkansas, Duggarโs home state, law officials said. The cityโs Police Department confirmed Duggarโs arrest in a separate statement, noting it acted on a warrant issued by the Bay County Sheriffโs Office.
The former reality star was charged with molestation of a victim younger than 12 and โlewd and lascivious behavior conductedโ by an adult. Duggar, who is jailed at the Washington County Detention Center, awaits extradition to Florida. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
Duggar; his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar; and his siblings garnered reality TV fame in 2008 with the launch of โ19 Kids and Counting.โ The series followed the Christian fundamentalist clan who used their television platform to preach purity, modesty and religious devotion. The familyโs facade shattered in 2015 when Josh, the firstborn Duggar child, was accused of molesting five younger girls โ four of whom were his sisters โ when he was 15. The series was canceled that year.
In a separate case, Josh was convicted on two counts of possessing and receiving child pornography in December 2021. He was sentenced to 12ยฝ years in prison in 2022. The Supreme Court rejected his efforts to appeal his case last June.
Amy Duggar Kind, a cousin of Joseph and Josh Duggar and series regular on โ19 Kids and Counting,โ released a statement before the arrest of Kendra Duggar โpraying for Josephโs wife, Kendra, as she begins to process this, and for the protection of their children,โ and then a follow-up statement once news of Kendraโs arrest went public.
โMy statement released on Friday, March 20th was written and submitted before I had any knowledge of Kendra Duggarโs arrest,โ she wrote.
โWhen I wrote that I was praying for Kendra โas she begins to process this,โ I was speaking to what I believed at the time โ that she was a wife and mother blindsided by devastating news about her husband. I want that context to be unambiguous. Those words were written in a different moment, with different information. The world changed a few hours later.
โI have now learned that Kendra Duggar was arrested on Friday on four counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a minor and four counts of second-degree false imprisonment. These are serious charges. They are not the same as Josephโs charges, but they are not small, and I will not treat them as small.
โI am not going to rush to conclusions about what Kendra knew, when she knew it, or what her role was in any of this. That is the job of law enforcement and the courts, and I trust that process to unfold. What I will say is this: the moment a person faces criminal charges for the endangerment of children, my prayers shift. They shift entirely and without apology to the children.
โTo the four children in that home โ I see you. I pray for you. None of this is your fault, and none of this is your burden to carry.
โTo the original victim, who is now fourteen years old and has watched this story explode across every screen in the country: I am so deeply sorry. You did an incredibly brave thing by coming forward. You deserve to have every institution around you work on your behalf โ not to protect the people who hurt you, and not to protect the image of a family. You. I am still praying for you and your family above all else.โ
Kendra Duggar was booked into the Washington County Detention Center on Friday and released on a $1,470 bond the same day.
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.