Arkansas police have destroyed the records of the investigation into Josh Duggar’s alleged molestation of five underage girls, a police spokesman announced Friday, a day after the reality TV star resigned his position as head of FRC Action.
Springdale Police spokesman Scott Lewis said Judge Stacey Zimmerman ordered the 2006 offense report destroyed Thursday. Zimmerman didn’t return a request for comment on Friday.
“The judge ordered us yesterday to expunge that record,” Lewis said, adding that similar records are typically kept indefinitely. “As far as the Springdale Police Department is concerned this report doesn’t exist.”
Neither Duggar nor his father, a former state representative, returned calls seeking comment Friday.
Several Arkansas Republicans have rallied behind the Duggar family, which is still engaged in state politics. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar attended the kickoff event earlier this month for Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who supported the family in a Facebook post on Friday.
“Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed_not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims,” Huckabee wrote.
Arkansas Sen. Bart Hester said Josh Duggar, who he has known for about five years, has been open and honest about the incident with wife, family and friends. State Sen. Jon Woods, who has known the Duggar family since 2005, said the family had put the issue behind them.
“It’s between the family members and was addressed a long time ago but it’s new to the public,” Woods said. “The family had time to heal and now the public needs time to heal.”
Last October, TLC canceled a series about child beauty pageant contestant Honey Boo Boo and her Georgia family amid reports that her mother, June Shannon, was dating a man with a criminal past.
