A federal judge threw out the Duggar sisters' lawsuit against Arkansas police for sharing documents from the Josh Duggar molestation investigation

• A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by four of Josh Duggar's sisters against Arkansas officials.
• The sisters sued Arkansas officials, alleging they improperly released police documents from the 2006 Josh Duggar molestation investigation.

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by four Duggar sisters, who had accused police in Arkansas of improperly sharing documents from their investigation into molestation allegations against their brother Josh Duggar.

The siblings, formerly of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting," underwent a major scandal in 2015 when InTouch published a 2006 police report alleging that Josh Duggar had molested four of his sisters.

Duggar, who was convicted in December of child-pornography possession, was never criminally charged with molesting or abusing his sisters. In 2017, his sisters sued the city of Springdale, Washington County, and a number of specific city and county officials, including the former Springdale police chief and a former official from the Washington County Sheriff's Office.

The sisters contended that law enforcement officials in the city and county broke privacy laws by improperly sharing official documents detailing the alleged abuse they experienced from their brother. An attorney representing the sisters did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Two of those sisters, Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald, have previously condemned the media's handling of the molestation allegations. They told Fox News in 2015 that they had long since forgiven their brother, and that the media had participated in a "revictimization that's even a thousand times worse" than their brother's actions.

Josh Duggar previously apologized for his conduct toward his sisters, saying he "acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret."

Those molestation allegations against Josh Duggar resurfaced during his 2021 child pornography trial, when prosecutors portrayed him as a habitual child predator. A family friend of the Duggars testified that Josh Duggar had confessed on multiple occasions to touching young girls both over and under their clothing.

Duggar has not yet been sentenced, but faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.

In a 20-page ruling filed on Wednesday, Judge Timothy Brooks — who also oversaw the recent child-pornography trial — said the Arkansas officials who handled the Josh Duggar molestation investigation documents were "seemingly ignorant of the privacy rights Arkansas affords to sexual assault victims."

Brooks said the Duggar sisters were correct that Arkansas officials wrongly released several documents related to the molestation investigation. But he said the Duggar sisters failed to prove that Arkansas officials knew their conduct was illegal when they released the documents.

Rather, Brooks explained, the Arkansas officials "were profoundly wrong about the law," but "motivated by a belief that they were legally obligated to release these reports, and to do so quickly."

Notably, Brooks' ruling also included a number of damning details about the molestation allegations and how the Duggar family handled them. Brooks wrote that Josh Duggar sexually abused his sisters between 2002 and 2003, when he was 15 years old, and when his sisters ranged in age from 5 to 11 years old.

"Their parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, discovered the abuse but did not report it to the police or any state agency. Instead, they decided to keep it a secret and discipline Joshua privately," Brooks wrote.

Brooks added that the family secret spread "by word of mouth" over the years before it ultimately reached the Arkansas Department of Human Services, which reported the allegations to the Springdale Police Department.

Though authorities interviewed the Duggar family, Brooks noted that "no criminal charges were ever brought against Joshua, nor were his sisters removed from the family home."