A New Mexico judge threw out the child sex abuse indictment against actor and director Timothy Busfield on Friday, ruling that prosecutors “failed to act in a fair and impartial manner” when they took the case to a grand jury. The ruling doesn’t clear him. Prosecutors can bring the charges again, and the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office said it’s “evaluating our options to determine how we will proceed,” ABC News reported.
Busfield, best known for “thirtysomething” and “The West Wing,” was indicted in February on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor. Prosecutors said each count carried a possible six-year sentence that could be enhanced. He has denied the allegations from the start.
Why did the judge dismiss the Busfield indictment?
Because of how prosecutors handled the grand jury. District Judge Joseph Montano found that their actions had the effect of keeping witnesses away from grand jurors who had asked to hear from them. Busfield’s lawyers said prosecutors told jurors they needed subpoenas for defense witnesses who were “present, available and willing to testify.” “The state engaged in egregious prosecutorial misconduct,” his defense team argued, NBC News reported. After the ruling, his attorney said the judge “saw the prosecution’s tactic for what it was.”
District Attorney Greer Staley’s office had argued the opposite: that the defense didn’t follow the right process for getting evidence in front of a grand jury, and that Busfield “excessively” tried to steer jurors toward favorable witnesses during his own testimony.
What is Timothy Busfield accused of?
The case comes from the set of the Fox drama “The Cleaning Lady,” which Busfield directed from 2022 to 2024 in Albuquerque. The parents of twin boys who had been cast on the show, and later let go, said he touched the children inappropriately. A January criminal complaint said one boy reported being touched over his clothing when he was 7 and 8. Busfield turned himself in that month and was released before trial.
Busfield told the grand jury the accusation was “absolutely one gazillion percent untrue.” His lawyers say the boys first told police nothing inappropriate happened and accuse the parents of coaching them. He testified that he’d been “canceled,” losing work and his agency. The judge found no pattern of similar conduct involving children in his past.
The BeezLoop Take
This ruling is about process, not about what happened on that set. Nobody has been found guilty or innocent, and both the boys’ account and Busfield’s denial deserve to be tested fairly. That’s exactly why the grand jury step matters. When jurors ask to hear witnesses and get blocked, the result can’t be trusted either way.
If prosecutors believe the case, they should bring it back the right way. If they can’t make it stand up with a fair process, that tells you something too. Botching it serves nobody, least of all the kids at the center of it.
The open question: will the Bernalillo County DA seek a new indictment, and if so, will grand jurors get to hear the witnesses they asked for?
Also on BeezLoop: Selma Blair pleaded not guilty to assault after a Delta flight, and Keffe D was sentenced to 40 years to life in Tupac Shakur’s murder.
Sources: ABC News · NBC News · NBC News (video)
