Almost a year after Timothy Busfield was charged with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse stemming from alleged incidents involving two minor boys on the New Mexico set of the Fox/Warner Bros TV series The Cleaning Lady, the Emmy winner has seen the case against him dismissed.
“The prosecuting attorney failed to act in a fair and impartial manner, including the failure to properly instruct the grand jury on the law for calling witnesses and in instructing the grand jurors on a procedure that effectively withheld requested witnesses,” Land of Enchantment Judge Joseph Montano wrote Friday in an order on the thirtysomething actor’s move to quash the indictment against him. “In doing so, the grand jury proceedings were conducted in a manner that violated grand jury statutes designed to protect the structural integrity of our grand jury system and the presumption of prejudice applies.”
Busfield directed several episodes of the Élodie Yung starrer during its four-season run from 2022-25. Being held without bond at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center after being arrested and booked, Busfield appeared briefly in Judge Felicia Blea-Rivera’s courtroom remotely January 14. On January 20, just a few days after the actor-director turned himself in, New Mexico Judge David Murphy rejected flight concerns by Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman and past (never charged) accusations against The West Wing actor. At the time, insisting on his innocence, Busfield was released from custody pending trial.
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Since then he has said that the claims are “absolutely one gazillion percent untrue. Never ever.”
A sometime caustic hearing was held in Albuquerque on September 25 on Busfield’s motion to have the indictment thrown out.
Now, with the indictment actually dismissed, Judge Montano has given DA Bregman’s office to “institute new criminal proceedings” against Busfield. Each count in the now tossed indictment carries a maximum sentence of six years behind bars – which could have added up to over a decade in state prison for Busfield if the DA refiles and he is found guilty. With that said, the reality is today’s order is a pretty damning indictment of its own against the one-time Gubernatorial hopeful and his office’s rush to judgement.
“The issue presented is that once alerted, the grand jurors requested to hear from witnesses not presented by the State, and the prosecutor used an unexplained procedure and an incomplete explanation of the subpoena requirement to unilaterally withhold evidence from the grand jury,” Judge Montano added in his six-page order. “These actions are not in line with either the letter or the spirit of the grand jury laws. To the extent delays may result when the prosecutor disputes evidence requested by grand jurors-after they have been alerted to the evidence without objection-the Court finds the reliability of the grand jury system and the intent that grand jurors be given access to more evidence-as long as it complies with the evidentiary standard outweighs the potential delay in proceedings.”
Reached by Deadline Friday after the dismissal order was made public, DA Bergman’s office said: “Our office has received the order and is evaluating our options to determine how we will proceed.”
The brevity reads volumes.
Reps for Busfield, who has been out on bond and mainly on the East Coast since the beginning of the year, and his main lawyer Larry Stein did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on their big win today
