Nearly one month after it was revealed that Josh Duggar had accused Homeland Security of unfairly restraining him during their April 2021 search of his Arkansas car dealership, prosecutors filed a Citation of Supplemental Authority that pointed to a separate case, before arguing the agents acted within the bounds of the law.
The court papers filed on Tuesday, January 24, cited U.S. vs. Treanton, claiming it "bears on defendant-appellant Joshua Duggar’s contention that he was in custody during the search of his used-car lot."
As OK! previously reported, the disgraced Counting On alum insisted agents attempted to "suppress statements" after an officer "physically stopped him from contacting his attorney and subsequently interrogated him outside the presence of his counsel." He also stated that they had forced him to stay in his car, despite officials' later claims that Duggar "maintained unencumbered freedom of movement" throughout the incident.
"A panel of this Court rejected a similar contention arising under significantly more restrictive circumstances than those at issue in Duggar’s case," the government's Citation of Supplemental Authority read, adding that the panel had decided in U.S. vs. Treanton that the suspect had not been officially in custody "because ‘a reasonable person in Treanton’s position would have believed that he was free to terminate the interview if he wished.'"
"Duggar’s Fifth Amendment rights are not implicated here because he was not in custody during his conversation with investigators," the court papers continued.
During the 2021 search of Duggar's Arkansas car dealership, agents confiscated his computer and discovered what they described as some of the "word" illicit child abuse material. Duggar was later found guilty of receiving and possessing child pornography and sentenced to service 12 and a half years behind bars.
He was transferred from Washington County Jail in Arkansas to Federal Correctional Facility Seagoville in Texas in late June 2022.
Duggar appealed both his conviction and his sentence in October 2022. A decision has not yet been made.
