SANTA FE, N.M. \u2014 \u201cWest Wing\u201d and \u201cField of Dreams\u201d actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child under age 13, a New Mexico prosecutor announced Friday.<\/p>\n
The allegations are tied to Busfield\u2019s work as a director on the set of the TV series \u201cThe Cleaning Lady\u201d from 2022 to 2024.<\/p>\n
Busfield has denied the allegations, initially filed in court by police, and a defense attorney on Friday said he would \u201cfight these charges at every stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman announced the indictment in a social media post.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Busfield had turned himself in to authorities in January on related charges by police and was released from jail by a judge who found no pattern of criminal conduct or similar allegations involving children in Busfield\u2019s past. The grand jury indictment allows the case against Busfield to proceed toward possible trial without a preliminary courtroom hearing on evidence.<\/p>\n
Larry Stein, an attorney for Busfield, did not comment directly on the sexual contact charge in the indictment but said the grand jury declined to endorse grooming charges sought by prosecutors. Prosecutors declined to comment on what accusations it brought before the grand jury.<\/p>\n
Stein said in a statement that a detention hearing already \u201cexposed fatal weaknesses in the state\u2019s evidence \u2014 gaps that no amount of charging decisions can cure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Busfield will fight these charges at every stage and looks forward to testing the State\u2019s case in open court,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
An investigator with the Albuquerque Police Department said a boy reported that Busfield touched his private areas over his clothing when he was 7 years old and again when he was 8, according to the initial criminal complaint from police. The boy\u2019s twin told authorities he was also touched by Busfield, but he didn\u2019t say anything right away because he didn\u2019t want to get in trouble, the complaint said.<\/p>\n
The indictment \u2014 filed Friday in state District Court \u2014 reiterates allegations that Busfield \u201ctouched or applied force to the intimate parts\u201d of one of the boys on several occasions.<\/p>\n
At a detention hearing last month, Busfield\u2019s attorneys pointed out that the children initially said during interviews with police that Busfield didn\u2019t touch them inappropriately. Busfield\u2019s attorneys then accused the boys\u2019 parents of coaching their children toward incriminating statements after the boys lost lucrative roles on the show.<\/p>\n
But Assistant District Attorney Savannah Brandenburg-Koch has called evidence of abuse against Busfield strong and specific, with support from medical findings and the boys\u2019 therapist. She also said witnesses expressed fear about potential retaliation and professional harm.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have outlined what they said was grooming behavior and abuse of power by Busfield over three decades.<\/p>\n
Each count in the indictment against Busfied carries a possible penalty of six years in prison that can be enhanced if it involves a sexual offense, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
In freeing Busfield on Jan. 20, state District Court Judge David Murphy said that while the crimes Busfield is accused of inherently are dangerous and involve children, prosecutors didn\u2019t prove the public wouldn\u2019t be safe if he\u2019s released.<\/p>\n
Busfield is best known for appearances on \u201cThe West Wing,\u201d \u201cField of Dreams\u201d and \u201cThirtysomething.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source triblive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SANTA FE, N.M. \u2014 \u201cWest Wing\u201d and \u201cField of Dreams\u201d actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child under age 13, a New Mexico prosecutor announced Friday. The allegations are tied to Busfield\u2019s work as a director on the set of the TV […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2270532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Actor-Timothy-Busfield-indicted-in-New-Mexico-on-4-counts.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2270533,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270531\/revisions\/2270533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2270532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}