Josh Duggar has reportedly had the date he's scheduled to be released from prison changed. Although this isn't the first time his initial date has been changed, this does appear to be the first time the date was moved up, meaning his time in jail is less than previously thought.
Josh has a new release date.
According to In Touch, his release date has been moved again. This time it’s scheduled sooner than the previous date set by the courts.
He will be released about a week earlier, according to reports.
In Touch notes that Josh was originally scheduled to leave the prison on October 10, 2032. Recently the date was changed, however, to October 2, 2032, the news outlet reported, citing online records from the Federal Correctional Institute in Seagoville Texas.
The date only moved up by just over a week. It is still months after the original release date set during his sentencing.
In December 2021, he was convicted of downloading and possessing child sexual abuse material.
At his sentencing hearing in May 2022, Josh was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison to be carried out at the Federal Correctional Institute in Seagoville.
At the time, his expected release date was set for August 12, 2032, but a few months later, his release date was extended.
In March 2023, Duggar was moved to the prison’s Special Housing Unit, which sources note is the prison’s solitary confinement, and his sentence was extended for allegedly possessing a cellphone.
This new date change came quietly, around the same time that Josh's sister, Jill Duggar Dillard, released her memoir.
Jill released her memoir Counting the Cost in late September, and in her book, she talked about her brother’s sentencing and her parent’s reaction to it.
“Though I love my parents and it made a lot of sense that they would want to protect and care for their child, I couldn’t help but think about the lengths that Pops had gone to in order to guard Josh’s privacy and keep him from being publicly humiliated,” she wrote.
“I mentioned this to Derick, and he said that he had noticed the same thing,” Jill added. “The feelings grew stronger within me, and by the time I went to bed I felt sick to my core.”
More recently, since the release of her book, Jill said her father has threatened her siblings.
"My dad texted the entire family group text (since we’re still in the group thread) and he was just saying, 'This is so sad' and basically threatening that if anybody speaks out against him or my mom that they would be cut out of the inheritance," Jill told Today.
Still, Jill has received a lot of support from the public, and some of her siblings.
As for Josh, he’s likely to have his release date changed a few more times.
Some of these release date changes seem to be pretty standard and not so much for anything the oldest Duggar has done or not done while in prison.
Through his lawyers, Josh recently petitioned for another appeal of his conviction, but it was denied, according to the Arkansas Times.
Still, a lot can happen between now and October 2032.
