A New Mexico grand jury has indicted actor Timothy Busfield on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child, the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s office announced. The case is expected to proceed to trial and will be handled by the DA’s Special Victims Unit.
An arrest warrant was issued in January after an Albuquerque Police Department investigator filed a criminal complaint saying a child reported that Busfield inappropriately touched him multiple times on the set of the television series The Cleaning Lady when the boy was 7 and 8 years old. According to the complaint, the child said he was afraid to report the alleged abuse because he feared Busfield would become angry.
Busfield’s attorney, Stanton Larry Stein, said the indictment was not unexpected and that Busfield intends to contest the charges. Stein said the district attorney is moving forward with a case he considers fundamentally unsound and that a detention hearing revealed serious weaknesses in the state’s evidence.
The complaint alleges the conduct occurred between November 2022 and spring 2024 and was reported after the boy’s mother took the children to a hospital on the advice of a lawyer. The boy’s twin brother also told investigators he had been touched by Busfield, though he did not identify where, and said he feared being punished for reporting it.
Warner Bros., producer of The Cleaning Lady, conducted an internal investigation and said it could not corroborate the allegations. In an interview with police last fall, Busfield denied wrongdoing and told investigators the twins’ mother was acting out of revenge after the boys were replaced on the show. He also said he might have picked up and tickled the boys on set and described the environment as playful.
On January 13, Busfield turned himself in and was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Bernalillo County on a child sex abuse charge. He denied the allegations in a video obtained by TMZ.
Court filings show that the same day another allegation was reported to law enforcement. The father of a then-16-year-old girl alleged that Busfield kissed and inappropriately touched the girl while she auditioned at a California theater Busfield co-founded. The documents state that Busfield asked the family not to report the incident if he received therapy, and that the girl’s father agreed. That allegation is said to have occurred several years ago.
Busfield was initially held without bond and was released pending trial in late January. The district attorney’s office declined to provide additional details about the charges.
Busfield is known for roles in The West Wing, Field of Dreams and Thirtysomething, for which he won an Emmy in 1991. He is married to actor Melissa Gilbert, who deactivated her Instagram amid the allegations and, through a publicist, said she will not comment at the request of Busfield’s attorneys while the legal process continues.