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Inside Josh Duggar’s Life Behind Bars Amid 12.5-Year Sentence: ‘He’s Been Basically a Model Prisoner’
Josh Duggar was found guilty of receiving child pornography in December 2021 and was sentenced to serve out a 12.5 year sentence behind bars.
More than three years later, a source exclusively tells In Touch that the disgraced former reality star has kept a low profile at Federal Correctional Institution Seagoville, a low security prison situated outside of Dallas, Texas.
“He’s pretty quiet and keeps to himself, other than the little hiccup with the cellphone,” a source close to the situation says, referring to when Josh was found with a contraband phone and put into solitary confinement in 2023. “He’s been basically a model prisoner.”
Josh, 37, may reportedly be on his best behavior, but the same cannot be said for everyone at the facility. A source also told In Touch that Josh’s commissary funds were restricted after a staff member at the prison was “pranked.”
“Some sort of chemical convocation spilled on a staff member,” a source said at the time. “We decided to restrict commissary until we figured out what happened or if it came from commissary. We found out who did it, but wanted to wait out the cycle so it fairly affected everyone.”
This comes several months after Josh was accused of spending parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s money on flashy items to make his life more comfortable behind bars.
“Truth is, Josh has been rescued by his folks so many times and he probably thinks he deserves the finer things,” an insider spilled to In Touch in December 2024. “Jim Bob and Michelle are sick with worry and Josh is guilting them even more into sending him cash so he can buy the luxuries that would otherwise be unavailable to him and live in style.”
“Not only is he going around in sunglasses and pricey sneakers … he’s also shopping for bath supplies and expensive skin creams, books and magazines, candy, soda and other comforts,” added the insider. “The other inmates don’t have what he has, and it just makes Josh look smug and entitled.”
Josh’s high-profile trial was far from his first public scandal. The father of seven came under fire in 2015 when a leaked police report from 2002 revealed he’d been accused of molesting five girls – at least two of which were his younger sisters – when he was around 14 years old.
He was also launched into the spotlight when it was revealed that he used the dating website Ashley Madison, which was designed for married people who were looking to have affairs. In August 2015, Josh released a statement confessing to being unfaithful to his wife, Anna Duggar, while calling himself the “biggest hypocrite ever.”
“The last few years, while publicly stating I was fighting against immorality in our country, I was hiding my own personal failings,” he said at the time. “As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences.”
Despite his infidelity and his child pornography charge, Anna and Josh are believed to still be married.
Josh is expected to remain behind bars at FCI Seagoville until 2032.
