In an email to his father Jim Bob Duggar that was sent over a year after his arrest, Josh Duggar said he got a visit from one sibling and a message from another
“I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me at this point…but i would expect at least a little bit of respect as a human being — which i feel like i haven’t even received from any of my own siblings.”
This is what Josh Duggar told his father Jim Bob Duggar in an email he sent just two days after being sentenced to 151 months in federal prison following his conviction for possessing child sexual abuse material. In that same email, a copy of which was obtained by PEOPLE, Josh wrote that only two of his siblings had contacted him in the 13 months since his arrest.
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“It is shameful that i have received only 1 message from one of my siblings and only 1 video visit,” Josh wrote to his father on May 27, 2022. Josh wrote that his sister Jessa Duggar Seewald sent that one message and that the video visit was with his brother John-David Duggar.
Joseph and Kendra Duggar — with whom Josh’s wife Anna was in constant contact following their arrests — had not reached out to Josh at that time.
In the email, Josh also shared a message that he asked his father to include in a group chat with his siblings. “[W]ith all due respect, shame on you that you didn’t reach out,” Josh wrote at one point in the message meant for his siblings.
He then urged his siblings to “examine [their] hearts and lives” as well as their “own behavior” in order to ask themselves how they would want to be treated if they were in jail.
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Josh then said that even if his siblings could not show him compassion, they could at least show his wife Anna and their seven children “unconditional love and kindness,” saying Anna “is practically a widow” and his children were “fatherless” as he prepared to start his sentence at FCI Seagoville in Texas, a facility located just 10 miles outside Dallas.
He then ended the message for his siblings by expressing his love for his 18 brothers and sisters. “I LOVE EACH ONE OF YOU EVEN THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN HURTFUL,” Josh wrote, before signing off by writing: “I LOVE YOU ! WITH A SPIRIT OF LOVE, -JOSH your oldest brother.”
The disgraced reality star recently had time added to his federal prison sentence, and is now scheduled to be released from FCI Seagoville in Texas on Feb. 2, 2033. That marked the third time Josh’s prison sentence had been extended from his initial release date of August 2032. Josh is also in the middle of his fourth and — barring the discovery of some new evidence — final attempt to appeal his conviction.
