Timothy Busfield voluntarily surrendered to authorities in the state of New Mexico after an arrest warrant was issued against him earlier this month.
The prosecution accuses him of child abuse and criminal sexual contact with a minor, charges that the interpreter has vehemently denied, publicly asserting his innocence.
The actor and director, recognized for a decades-long career in film and television, appeared before the police after previously going to his lawyer’s office in Albuquerque.
In images obtained by the American media outlet TMZ, the artist appears moments before surrendering and declares that he is willing to “confront these lies.” In the same video, he firmly insists: “I didn’t do anything to those little ones.”
The accusations date back to 2022, when Timothy Busfield was working as a director on the series The Cleaning Lady, filmed in New Mexico. According to the criminal complaint, two child actors — who at the time were 7 and 8 years old — were allegedly victims of sexual abuse during filming.
The investigation against Busfield began in November 2024, after a doctor at the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) alerted the authorities about a possible case of child sexual abuse.
The parents stated that, after consulting with a lawyer, they took the minors to UNMH, where health professionals suggested that the children “had been subjected to grooming.”
However, the case did not proceed at that time because, according to the authorities, it did not meet the necessary criteria for formal acceptance. Later, in October 2025, the children’s mother filed a police report and notified the Child Protective Services.
In that report, it was stated that both children revealed they had suffered sexual abuse by the actor “from approximately November 2022 to the spring of 2024.”
Busfield’s defense maintains that the accusations lack merit. His civil attorney, Larry Stein, stated to TMZ that he believes there is a “revenge factor” behind the case.
Stein cited the content of the criminal complaint, which mentions the testimony of an actress from the set who claims that the children’s mother had expressed her intention to take revenge after her children were removed from the cast for the final season of the series.
Furthermore, Larry Stein stated that Warner Bros., a studio linked to the production, ordered an independent investigation carried out by an external law firm.
According to the lawyer, the investigator interviewed approximately a dozen people related to the filming and concluded that the evidence gathered did not support the accusations against Timothy Busfield.
Despite these arguments, the judicial process moved forward. The arrest warrant was issued last Friday and, according to previous reports, the U.S. Marshals Service got involved earlier this week to help New Mexico authorities locate the actor.
Finally, Busfield chose to turn himself in on his own account. The impact of the case has already been felt in the entertainment industry. The NBC network decided to remove from its programming an episode of Law & Order: SVU that was scheduled to air this week and in which the artist appeared, pending clarification of his legal situation.
