Josh Duggar Trial Enters Third Day With Heated Password Debate

The third day of Josh Duggar’s child sexual abuse material trial got heated as the 19 Kids and Counting alum’s former colleague and relative Matthew Waller took the stand. Waller, whose brother is married to the sister of Duggar’s wife, Anna, testified Thursday that he and Duggar were the only ones working full-time at Wholesale Motors, where police allege they found child sex abuse materials on an office computer Duggar downloaded. 

Waller testified that he only ever saw himself and Duggar use the keypad to get into the office where the computer was located and that he never gave the computer password to anyone else, as per PEOPLE. In Wednesday’s opening arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Roberts alleged that the computer’s hard drive was effectively split in two by a password-protected Linux partition, which had a different password than the main computer segment – one that Duggar allegedly used for other personal accounts which included his birth year, Intel1988. It was there that the child sexual abuse material was found. 

Duggar has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, with his defense suggesting other people with access to the computer downloaded the files. Waller was a key part of that argument, as one of Duggar’s defense attorneys, Travis Story, then questioned him about the password to the computer, asking if Intel1988 rang a bell.

“‘Intel’ very faintly rings a bell,” Waller replied. During the redirect, Roberts noted in a raised voice that Waller previously said he didn’t know the password. “I told you I thought you were hiding something, didn’t I?” he said. “I asked you specifically if you were intending to testify to something that you were not telling me.” Waller then told Roberts the word “intel” was “vaguely familiar, very faintly familiar.”

When the defense asked Waller if he remembered the government asking him about the password before, the witness responded, “It’s hard to remember who are the government lawyers and who are the defense lawyers … I’m just starting to get it straight.” Roberts then asked Waller if he had been hiding what he knew about the password, with Waller saying it was difficult to remember the details of the case.

 He later admitted that the defense had reminded him of information he didn’t otherwise remember during the pre-trial prep by asking questions. “When we asked if it [Intel1988] meant anything it seemed to ring a bell,” Story said, and Waller responded, “A vague bell.” Roberts then asked if he ever heard Duggar ever mention the specific password Intel1988 around him, and Waller said he didn’t recall. The former TLC star faces up to 20 years of imprisonment and up to $250,000 in fines on each of the two counts if found guilty.