Joseph Duggar’s wife arrested on child abuse charges
03/23/2026 3:00 pm PDT
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ark. (TCN) – The wife of Joseph Duggar, who was recently arrested on charges of lewd and lascivious behavior against a child under 12, has been arrested on misdemeanor child abuse charges.
Online records obtained by CBS News show that Kendra Duggar, 27, was taken into police custody on March 20, shortly after her husband’s arrest. She was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and false imprisonment and was released about an hour later.
As previously reported, Joseph Duggar was arrested March 18 in connection with the alleged abuse of a 9-year-old girl in 2020 during a family vacation to Panama City Beach, Florida. The victim, now 14, alleged that Joseph Duggar touched her underwear, grazed her genitals, and rubbed her thighs after having her sit beside him on the couch under a blanket. Joseph Duggar was arrested in Tontitown, Arkansas and will be extradited to Bay County, Florida, where the alleged abuse took place, to face charges.
Joseph Duggar’s older brother, Josh Duggar, was sentenced to 12 years behind bars in 2022 for possession of child pornography, and although he was never charged, a 2006 police report alleged that he had molested five underage girls, four of them his sisters.
KNWA reports that the charges faced by Kendra Duggar are unrelated to her husband’s Florida charges.
E! News reports that Kendra Duggar and Joseph Duggar married in 2017 and have four children.
Kendra Duggar’s husband had starred, along with his siblings, on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” which portrayed the daily life of a large family homeschooling and raising their children with fundamentalist Christian values in accordance with the Institute of Basic Life Principles, an organization with which the parents are affiliated.
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