Josh Duggar asked a judge for a new trial in a motion that tried to blame a former employee for the child sexual abuse material found on his computer
Duggar's attorneys filed a motion Wednesday evening asking the court to acquit Duggar of downloading and possessing child











, and complaining that their client was unfairly prevented from calling a "necessary witness" during the seven-day trial.
That witness was a person who had worked at Duggar's used car lot in Springdale, Arkansas. Duggar's attorneys said in their motion that the former employee — who was also a registered sex offender — had "regularly used the desktop computer in the months and weeks leading up to May 2019."
Duggar's attorneys said that former employee, who had previously been interviewed by federal authorities and prosecutors, sent an "unsolicited email" to a prosecutor shortly before the trial. The email stated that the former employee had been "completely mistaken" when he told investigators he had not been at Duggar's used car lot, according to the motion.
The former employee said in his email that he had been in Arkansas between May 8 and May 11, 2019, days before Duggar's child











downloading activity, and that he did not recall whether he used Duggar's computer during his trip. The former employee also sent a number of text messages, travel information, and receipts showing his various travels that month, according to the motion.
While Duggar's attorneys acknowledged that the former employee hoped his email would "establish that he was not at the car lot on certain dates in question," they accused prosecutors of improperly concealing the email until three days before Duggar's trial started.
They alleged that the former employee sent another follow-up email after the trial started, which included the social media passwords of several other Duggar siblings. Duggar's team said this information would have helped them show the jury that multiple people had password access to various Duggar-related accounts.
"In this case, Duggar was deprived of materially exculpatory evidence until the evening before the Government rested its case," his attorneys wrote.