In 2005, Duggar Family patriarch Jim Bob brought his son Josh to the Arkansas state troopers’ office after catching him fondling a female minor. As reported by In Touch and Radar, the two met with Joe Hutchens, a 26-year veteran state trooper, who counseled Josh but failed to follow up on his offense against the young girl. Hutchens’ failure to act allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the incident.
Some have framed Hutchens failure to follow up as some act of Christian mercy and forgiveness (the sort which Mike Huckabee has espoused for the wayward Josh). However, it seems more likely that Hutchens didn’t follow up because he himself was into criminal sexual activity. That same year, Hutchens was arrested on child porn charges; he served several years for his crimes, but after he was released from prison he re-offended while on parole.
An investigation found that Hutchens’ child porn habit never truly ceased. According to court records, Hutchens’ Yahoo profile screen name was “dadsluv2002”; under his interests, Hutchens listed “Strangers With Candy,” “Kinki Kids,” “Child Play series,” “Puberty,” and “Pre School.” Court papers also show that Hutchens was in possession of pictures depicting pubescent girls engaging in oral and vaginal sex. Child porn was also found on the county-owned computer Hutchens used for work. During his police interview, Hutchens admitted that he masturbated to pictures of young girls ages 2 to 3 and 12 to 13.
In 2010, Hutchens took a plea bargain and was sentenced to 56 years. Below is a report on Hutchens risk assessment as a sex offender provided by the court.
Update: In an interview with In Touch, Hutchens “shoots down” Duggar’s version of events, saying Josh Duggar only disclosed one instance of molestation to him, which is why he didn’t report him to an abuse hotline.
He said the fact that it was a one-time incident influenced his decision not to report it. “I did what I thought was right and obviously it wasn’t,” he says. “If I had to do it over again, I would have told him immediately I am going to call the hotline and contacted the trooper that worked those cases and have a full report made. I thought I could handle it myself.
Contact the author at natasha.vargas-cooper@jezebel.com.
Images via Getty and the AR Dept. of Corrections.