UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune
By Tribune wire reports
Reality TV star Jessa Duggar told Fox News Channel on Wednesday that she was a victim of her older brother Josh Duggar, who fondled five girls when he was a teenager.
Jessa Duggar, featured like her brother in the family’s TLC series, “19 Kids and Counting,” told Fox in an interview conducted in Arkansas on Wednesday that she wanted to defend him. She said allegations he’s a child molester or pedophile are “so overboard and a lie,” Fox reported.
The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sexual mistreatment. But Jessa Duggar is speaking publicly, in an interview that Fox’s Megyn Kelly also conducted with her parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. While Fox distributed Jessa Duggar’s quote Wednesday, it didn’t show it during the one-hour special about the case, with Kelly instead saying Fox would air the interviews with Jessa Duggar and her sister Jill Duggar on Friday.
The Duggar parents said Josh Duggar, who’s now 27, fondled four of his sisters and a family baby sitter when he was a teenager and confessed to them. The fondling was done over the girls’ clothes and, except in two cases, happened when the girls were asleep, Jim Bob Duggar said.
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