By his side. Anna Duggar showed her support for her husband, Josh Duggar, as he prepared to be officially sentenced in his child pornography trial on Wednesday, May 25.
The 33-year-old was spotted arriving at the hearing wearing a blue dress and a face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic. Photos published by The Sun on Wednesday also showed Joy-Anna Duggar and Jim Bob Duggar walking into the courthouse.
Anna and Josh tied the knot in September 2008, going on to welcome Mackynzie, 12, Michael, 10, Marcus, 8, Meredith, 6, Mason, 4, and Maryella, 2. Shortly before Josh’s arrest made headlines in April 2021, the 19 Kids and Counting alum announced she was pregnant with baby No. 7, another little girl. Daughter Madyson arrived six months later.
The eldest son of Jim Bob, 56, and Michelle Duggar was arrested without bail in April 2021, with his attorney entering a not guilty plea on his behalf to charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. Josh was later released from police custody and was placed on home confinement with third-party custodians instead of returning home to his wife and children, whom he could still visit with Anna present.
Anna previously accompanied the political activist to a September 2021 hearing. Two months later, she held his hand as they left an Arkansas courthouse following a pretrial evidentiary hearing. In December 2021, she was spotted looking solemn outside of court after Josh’s guilty verdict was announced.
The couple’s relationship was previously thrown into the spotlight in May 2015 after Josh was accused of molesting multiple teenage girls — some of whom were his sisters — in 2002. He apologized and resigned from his position at the Family Research Council, but the controversies continued that August when Josh admitted that he had cheated on his wife.
“I have been the biggest hypocrite ever,” he wrote in a statement shared via the Duggar family website after hackers made his Ashley Madison account public. “While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction, and I became unfaithful to my wife.”
Before the Arkansas native’s sentencing, his cousin Amy Duggar voiced her support for Anna in a lengthy open letter. Amy, 33, has been critical of Josh and his parents on social media amid the trial, even going so far as to call the former TLC star “sinister.”
Alongside a photo of herself hugging Anna, Amy wrote on May 17, “Anna, I feel for you. No woman wants to be in your shoes. You’re faced with an impossible decision and you’re being surrounded by the wrong kind of support. You’ve been taught since you were a child that marriage is forever and you prayed for God to send you a partner. You’ve constructed a life and a family with him. You didn’t choose any of this, and your kids certainly didn’t either.”
Amy wrote that she could sense Anna “struggling” with what to do next, writing, “Someday your kids will be old enough to understand what kind of guy their father really is. You can’t protect them from the truth for forever! I’m saying all of this publicly so that when they do grow up, they will also know that they had family members shouting from the rooftops that they were worth protecting all along.”
