Hear Melissa Gilbert call Timothy Busfield accusations, ‘cruel’
Audio obtained by USA TODAY revealed Melissa Gilbert told police the accusations against Timothy Busfield were “cruel” and “vindictive.”
After major roles in “Thirtysomething” and “The West Wing,” Timothy Busfield’s career was waning at 69, but he was still a working actor and director.
Not anymore, according to his grand jury testimony exclusively obtained by USA TODAY from the district attorney’s office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, through a public records request.
Busfield told the 12-member jury that he can no longer find work. His last hope, he said, was that the child sex abuse allegations against him would not also ruin his wife, actress Melissa Gilbert.
The actor and director was indicted in February on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child stemming from alleged incidents that occurred between late 2022 and early 2024 when he was working as a director and producer on “The Cleaning Lady” in New Mexico.
“My children, grandchildren, everybody in my life is done because of these false allegations for money and for revenge. These two criminals [the boys’ parents] have ruined me. And my wife and her business, I’m not going to break that,” Busfield said in the hearing in February.
His wife, the former child star of “Little House on the Prairie,” is the cofounder of lifestyle brand Modern Prairie. With the July 9 Netflix reboot of “Little House,” Gilbert has been promoting prairie-inspired wares, from $58 limited-edition hand-carved wood figurines of Laura Ingalls Wilder to $128 patchwork denim overalls.
Busfield told a grand jury that he didn’t touch the twin boys inappropriately. He said their parents wanted revenge for dropping them from the fourth season of the crime-thriller, and they manufactured the abuse and manipulated their children to tell the lie.
In testimony that spanned more than two hours, Busfield repeatedly apologized for veering off topic, admitted being nervous, and acknowledged “this is all very real and the stakes are very high.”
“My career’s done. I’m, I’m canceled. I’ll never, I don’t, I’ll never work again just based on people’s fear that I would do this again and, and even if it wasn’t true, I’m done. I’ve lost TV shows, a movie they’ve digitally replaced me from. My agency fired me. I’m done. This is not about me or a pity thing.”
What’s next for Timothy Busfield
A 12-member grand jury met Feb. 5 in Albuquerque and listened to just over four hours of testimony from Albuquerque Police Officer Marvin Brown and Busfield. They did not ask to interview more witnesses and returned the indictment that afternoon.
Busfield’s lawyer, Larry Stein, previously told USA TODAY in a statement that “the indictment was not unexpected” and maintained Busfield is innocent.
USA TODAY reached out to Stein for an update.
“As the saying goes, a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. What is deeply concerning is that the District Attorney is choosing to proceed on a case that is fundamentally unsound and cannot be proven at trial,” Stein said previously.
Busfield’s team filed a motion on June 18 asking the court to throw out the indictment, arguing that the prosecution did not present a fair and impartial case and misstated the law to the grand jury.
A trial date has been set for May 2027.
Timothy Busfield allegations: What is he accused of?
The boys accused Busfield of inappropriate physical contact on the show’s set and said Busfield told them to call him “Uncle Tim.” One boy said Busfield had touched his genitals over his clothes several times.
An investigation began in November 2024 when a University of New Mexico Hospital staff member reported concerns that the boys were being groomed by Busfield after their mother brought them in for an exam when she suspected they had been sexually abused. Hospital staff found no evidence of abuse.
Police interviewed the boys, who said at that time that they had not been sexually abused.
In September, the boys disclosed to therapists that they had been abused, which triggered another police investigation that led to Busfield’s arrest.
Busfield hasn’t spoken publicly about the case. A video obtained by TMZ in January showed him promising to “confront these lies.”
To protect the privacy of the boys, USA TODAY is not naming them or their parents. USA TODAY does not name survivors of sexual assault.
‘I have never been inappropriate in any way’
Busfield told the grand jury that others on set, from the director of photography to hair and make up artists, have said he wasn’t alone with the boys. The boys, he said, were always supervised on set.
“I have never been inappropriate in any way, physically, sexually, in any way with a child, prepubescent little boy,” Busfield told the jury members. “I’ve never, ever been inappropriate like that.”
Detective Brown shared testimony from more than 10 interviews, including one with a set teacher who said she didn’t always supervise the boys. Two production assistants confirmed the teacher’s account and told Brown they often saw the boys unsupervised.
Brown interviewed another crew member who told him he was with Busfield the entire time he was on set never saw the director tickle or touch the boys.
Brown told the jury that Busfield first told him that he hadn’t touched the boys but later admitted he had tickled them.
“He would tickle them and get them pumped up for the next set,” Brown said.
Busfield told the grand jury: “I probably may have touched them, never inappropriately or sexually. … The dad would say, ‘Go hug Uncle Tim,’ so I would touch them then. I never initiated that. I don’t remember ever kissing either one of those boys. Did I ever, uh, have my arms around those boys? Absolutely. Pictures? Absolutely. Uh, that’s what you do. Did I, during the picture when the parents say smile, give them a tickle under the ribs like you would your own kids? Yes. Did they ever touch them on their bodies inappropriately? Never, ever once.”
‘The parents would coach the kids,’ Timothy Busfield tells jurors
Busfield told jurors that the boys’ parents fabricated the abuse as revenge for being dropped from the show and losing their $30,000 combined salary per episode.
“[The boys] are the victims of these criminals. It’s terrible. I shouldn’t call them criminals. The parents would coach the kids and manufacture [the lies]. I find that horrible for those young boys’ lives, that they’re going to have to live with those lives,” Busfield said.
The boys’ father lost his law license in California and spent three years in prison for wire fraud conspiracy for taking money from homeowners facing foreclosure and failing to help them, according to U.S. District Court records and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. He was ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution.
The boys’ mother has multiple civil judgments against her for writing bad checks and gambling debts at Las Vegas casinos, according to Nevada court records.
Brown said when a child discloses that they were a victim of sexual assault, investigators don’t “start accusing the parents of being a bad parent.”
“[Our] job is to determine whether or not that happened, not the criminal behavior or past of a parent,” Brown said. “We have children that are sexual assault victims, whether the father or mother had been released from penitentiary, but just because they were a criminal in the past doesn’t mean that, that they can’t have a child that’s been a victim of sexual assault.”
Busfield also told the jury there was a video of the boys telling police he didn’t touch them. The boys initially told police they hadn’t been touched.
Brown said this is typical, particularly with prepubescent boys, who can be embarrassed.
“This child’s delayed disclosure was authentic. If the child had been coached, why wouldn’t he have disclosed initially when the first officer asked them? For the child to go through multiple therapy sessions and disclose to a licensed therapist nine months later or 10 months later does not sound like coaching to me,” Brown said. “Not only did the therapist believe the child, the forensic interviewer believed the child, I believed the child by watching the interview and it was consistent that this child was not lying.”
A judge will review evidence on Busfield’s request to quash the grand jury’s indictment on Aug. 25. Busfield does not have to attend the hearing.
Gilbert has visited the set of the “Little House” reboot and continues to support the show. She and her husband moved out of their New York City apartment in June to live full time in their Catskills cabin.
Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focusing on health and wellness. She is the author of “Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter’s Search for Truth and Renewal,” and can be reached at [email protected].
