Timothy Busfield Dropped By Innovative Artists As Child Sex Abuse Case Moves Forward In Courts
EXCLUSIVE: Timothy Busfield has been dropped by Innovative Artists on the same day the actor made his first court appearance over child sex abuse charges.
A rep for the company confirmed to Deadline the actor and director was no longer with the agency but declined to comment further. Busfield was with IA for several years.
Facing two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse over allegations of multiple incidents with two boys who were actors on The Cleaning Lady which Busfield directed several episodes of.
The Emmy winner turned himself into himself to Albuquerque police on January 13. Having supposedly driven himself from the East Coast to New Mexico. The dramatic surrender to authorities came five days after an arrest warrant was issued for Busfield and US Marshals were activate to apprehend him. In custody at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center after being arrested and booked, the 68-year-old orange jumpsuit wearing Emmy winner appeared via video feed in front of Judge Felicia Blea-Rivera on Wednesday afternoon.
Widely expected to eventual say not guilty after proclaiming his innocence on Tuesday, Busfield entered no plea today. Just before going to the authorities, Busfield put out a video in which he bluntly said, I did not do anything to those little boys.” Wednesday’s hearing followed a filing this morning by the Bernalillo County DA seeking to keep the defendant in custody and denying him bond. That same filing also revealed a new sex abuse claim against Busfield involving a 16-year-old girl nearly 30 years ago.
Facing potentially more than a decade behind bars if found guilty on the felonies, Busfield is set to return to court in no more than five business days for another hearing. That session will be to address a pre-trial detention motion filed today by incumbent DA (and current Land of Enchantment would-be governor) Sam Bergman’s office to keep Busfield off the streets up to and including a trial.
“No conditions of release will reasonably protect the safety of any other person or the community,” the 7-page document asserted, among other things.
As well as the allegations concerning the two 2014-born boys (referred to as SL and VL in last week’s arrest warrant) who starred on The Cleaning Lady over multiple seasons before being let go for having aged out of the role, the 68-year-old Busfield has also been accused in two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012. The West Wing vet wasn’t ever charged in either of those cases, which involved a 17-year-old girl and a 28-year-old woman, respectively, However, in an outcome that has been mischaracterized as a settlement of some sort, the actor was ordered to pay $150,000 in the mid-1990s matter over legal fees in an unsuccessful countersuit.
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