Josh Duggar will be calling Texas home for the next 12.5 years. After being sentenced on child pornography charges on Wednesday, May 25, he was sent to serve time at FCI Seagoville, In Touch can confirm. The prison is located in Texas instead of his home state of Arkansas.
The convicted felon’s legal team requested Judge Timothy Brooks to send Josh, 34, to the Federal Corrections Institution in Seagoville, Texas. The facility is located 20 miles southeast of Dallas and would make it easy for family and friends to fly into the city and make the 30-minute drive to Seagoville to visit Josh, as opposed to the approximately 358-mile one-way drive from the extended Duggar family hometown of Tontitown, Arkansas.
Judge Brooks agreed that the facility would be beneficial to Josh, as it has a “good sex offender program.” While he recommended during sentencing that Josh seek sex offender treatment while serving his time behind bars, it is not required of the former reality star.
The Seagoville prison currently houses 1,736 inmates, who live in either a dormitory-type area or a room based on bed space availability. The facility has military-like discipline when it comes to a dress code and cleanliness. From “Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., inmates must wear only clean, wrinkle-free institutional issued clothing,” and “Shirts must be buttoned and tucked inside trousers at all times,” the prisons website describes.
Hopefully Josh is adept with bedsheets and cleaning skills, as “All beds are to be made daily, in a tight military style, with the blanket being the top cover.” Windows and furniture are required to be cleaned daily. All inmates must return to their rooms by 11:00 p.m. daily when lights out occurs Sunday through Thursday, though prisoners are allowed to stay up with lights on until 1:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
The other prison where Josh could be sent is FCI Texarkana, which sits on the far Eastern Texas border with Southwestern Arkansas. Tontitown sits in the far northwestern corner of the state and is an approximately 250-mile drive one way to Texarkana.
The facility currently holds 1,133 inmates and has strictly regimented daily schedule for inmates that includes plenty of work mixed in with brief periods of recreation. The prison handbook notes that “Each inmate will exercise good personal hygiene. This includes routine showers, the changing of bed linens, etc. Also, frequent hand washing should take place.”
Once Josh is released, he will face 20 years of probation. He will not be allowed to have unsupervised visitation with children. Josh will also be forbidden from having a computer and won’t be allowed to view adult pornography.
Josh’s potential prison time was reduced during his sentencing when one of his two counts of knowingly receiving and possessing child pornography was dropped. “We’re grateful the judge dismissed Count 2 and rejected the Government’s request for a 240-month sentence,” Josh’s attorney Travis Story tells In Touch of his 151-month sentence. “We look forward to continuing the fight on appeal.”
The former 19 Kids and Counting star’s wife Anna Duggar, with whom he shares seven children, was present for her husband’s sentencing. Following the court proceedings, a face mask-wearing Anna, 34, kept a low profile as she left court, ignoring questions from reporters. In another video shared on Twitter, Anna quickly dodged photographers in the parking lot as she tried to make her way to her car. She has not yet released a statement regarding her husband’s prison sentence.
However, Anna hinted that she visited Josh in prison on her 34th birthday, which fell on June 23. “Officially 34. [14 years] since I said, ‘YES!’ Road-tripping to visit my bestie. ‘Even If’ by MercyMe on repeat. ‘Jesus, I will cling to You, come what may.’ You’ve been faithful. You’ve been good,” the former TLC personality wrote via Instagram Stories at the time.
Source: InTouch
