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Actress Melissa Gilbert is publicly defending her husband, West Wing actor Timothy Busfield, who has been indicted on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child/minor.
Gilbert says she is “100% confident he will be exonerated” and that she is “neither naive nor am I complicit” regarding past accusations against her husband. Law & Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the latest details of the case.
As actor and director Timothy Busfield is accused of child sex crimes out New Mexico, in a stunning move, his wife, actress Melissa Gilbert, has sat down for an interview.
She talked about the allegation,she was wery clear in the way that shef feels, and we will tell you right now, you don’t see this every day.
a spouse talking in the middle of a criminal case .
Why did she do it? is there a legal risk? what is the value of this ?
What does this say about the charges that Busfield faces?
Let’s get into it .
Off the top , you do not see this , okay? you do not see a criminal defendant, let alone their spouse, speaking out like this during a crimina case before it’s been resolved.
You don’t see it, it’s very rare.
We’re going to talk about why in a minute, there is a risk associated with doing it. but that is exactly what just happened .
Actress Melissa Gilbert, Little House on the Prairie, went on ABC´s Good Morning America alongside Busfield lawyer, Larry Stein and talked about her husband.
Defended her husband,West Wing actor Timothy Busfield.
Who,as we know,has been indicted on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child ,a minor,out New Mexico for alleged inappropriate contact involving two boys during the production of the Fox Warner Brother show ,the cleaning lady , which he served as a director .
Now, busfield was ordered released by New Mexico Judge, he’s awaiting trial , but to give you an idea about what we’re talking about…
Criminal sexual contact of minor under New Mexico law is the unlawful and intentional touching of or applying force to the intimate parts of a minor.
Or the unlawful and intentional causing of a minor to touch one’s intimate parts,for the purposes of this section , intimate parts means, and it goes into a description about what the private areas could be.
So, Giblert Does this interview and she says a lot.
She says,quote, ” this has been the most traumatizing experience of our lives, our life as we knew it is doen , we are grieving what we had all of our plans , all of our dreams ,all of our ideas, all of our projects, it’s done , he’s canceled, even if he’s exonerated, he will always be that guy , the last person in the world who would hurt a child”
Now,we we want tou to keep that part in mind cuz we´ll talk about it later,it might go into the motivations for why she did this interview,but she added how she is quote ,” 100% confident he will be exonerated.”
Now ,this part was really interesting because the conversation turned to Busfield’s prior accusations.
This has come up a lot in reporting,for example , there was this accusation back in the 90s from a 17 year old who accused him of sexual assault on the set of Little Big League,2012, 28 year old woman accused him of groping her at a movie theater.
Now , to be clear, there were no criminal charges that were ever filed in connection with either of these allegede episodes.
But there was also the reporting recently of how the father of a 16 year old girl came forward accusing Busfield of sexual assaulting his daughter several years ago.
And at the time, Busfield begged them not to go to the police if he promised to go to therapy.
So, Gilbert says during this interview quote ;
We’ll talk about when that might be…
Now ,before we analyze and dive into Gilbert speaking out , we want to put this a little bit more into context,her interview .
So , one of the things that happened was we actually interviewed Busfield civil attorney , Larry Stein, who was with Melissa Gilbert in that GMA interview.
You don’t usually see criminal defendants or their spouses speaking out during the middle in the middle of a criminal case.
What was the strategy here? why did she want to do this? why did sh want to to do this?
that was Stein’s first interview, he ever agreed to.
Larry Stein said;
the reason why is because the parents,detectives,the assistant district attorney and the district attorney have been absolutely complicit in a false story being prepared here.
And the media , unfortunately, has gone along with it.
They focused , on 30 year old allegations regarding women , which have absolutely nothing to do with an allegation regarding pubescent boys.
And so , they felt that in order to get their side of the story out, it was necessary for them to do these sorts of interviews.
So , we want to put this into context. originally, these twin boys , these accusers that are part of the current charges, they were apparently interviewed by authorities in November of 2024 when police were called to the University of New Mexico hospital .
One of the boys claimed that Busfield touched his private areas, according to therapist notes,this is someone who has been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety,allegedly as a result of what happened to him.
In fact, according to a 13 – page arrest warrant , the boy had , quote, nighthmares about the director touching him and waking up scared.”
The allegation is that the boys were groomed by Busfield a, who they apparently called Uncle Tim , that he would allegedly tickle them.
So, you’re talking 7 or 8 years old, but they denied at first anything sexual happened .
And there was even an audio tape that was released where the child accuser is seemingly denying Busfield touching him in this interview.
This was audio that was obtained by New York post and TMZ ,it was sbmitted by Busfield’s attorneys in a court filing.
And to be clear, and we’ll talk about this as well, there’s two ways to look at this ,on one hand , you could say,” oh my hosh ,this really strikes at the credibility of the accusers , it strikes at the credibility of parents.”
Who we will talk about…
Now, the other hand is , the other waty of looking at it, we both know that in a lot of alleged sexual assault cases or sexual abuse cases, whether it’s children,whether it’s adults, man , women , these alleged victims can first deny the abuse, not mention it , not report it and then come forward years later , days later ,months later, it all depends.
There’s a lot of complicating factors, but even so , this has to be considered along with what we about to get into.
Because since at the time there was no further evidence of sexual contact, the investigation didn’t go anywhere until October 2025.
The boys mother then field report against Busfield with CPS child protective services , this is when one of the boys claims that Busfield did touch his privates over his clothes.
And was quote;” affraid to tell anyone because Tim was the director, and feared Tim would get mad at him”
So, after conducting these interviews and reportedly talking to some members of the cleaning Lady production crew, an investigator secured an arrest warrant.
In the accompanying warrant in this case ,Busfield even allegedly addmitted to police that it was quote;”highly likely that he had some sort physical contact with the children ” though, he characterized the interactions as playful , like picking them up and tickling them .
And the warrant also includes a broader observation from law enforcement stating according to deadline, ” Pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role , like Timothy, who as a producer exploited the hectic film sets.”
Now according to deadline ,both parents of the boys and other alleged victims of Busfield over the years are on the prosecution’s witness list .
Now, Stein , again , Busfield’s lawyer , who also on GMA, said;
Now , where dpes that comes from?
Well,in one of Busfield’s pretrial filings from his attorneys, there was the argument that he should be released because he claimed the parents are frausters, that they’re stage parents.
Angela Lasalle and Ronald Rodis, citing even how Lasalle allegedly was heard saying she wanted to get ,quote ” revenge ” on Busfield, potentially because the boys were replaced by another child actor in an upcoming season of the show, quote;
That’s what Stein told , that there was an investigation where they actually spoke to different memberes of that production too.
“They also said in this filing;” the prosecution’s case rests almost entirely on the accounts of the two stages parents, they are not neutral observers.
Their allegations emerged only after the loss of the twin’s role and only after consultation with civil counsel creating an obvious financial and retaliatory motive. that motvie must be evaluated against the couple’s well -documented history of fraud and dishonesty”- Tim Busfield court Filing.
So, Busfield accuses Rodis essentially that there’s a change of story when money’s on the table that he’s doing this for financial gain saying quote;
(Rodis) is a former attorney whjo ws convicted of federal conspiracy and wire fraud and was later disbarred following that prosecution for a multi – million – dollar scheme in which he used his law license to deceive vulnerable victims for profit”- Tim Busfield filing
Citing how Rodis previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud when he reportedly defrauded more than 1,500 homeowners of approximately $ 6 million ,and this again accoridng to the filing that was obtained by outlets like people.
Busfield also cited a member of the cleaning lady crew who apparently called Rodis pushy and manipulative and ;
Frequently encourage and tell the children to hug people on set, including Mr Busfield .”- Tim Busfield court filing”
What about the boy’s mother? so, Busfield says she quote;
(she ) has had multiple civil judgements entered against her for fraudulent and dishonest behavior.”
Claiming she was sued for;
Various claims including fraud ,converion , and fraudulent transfer,including illegally repossessing a car and writing bad checks to Casinos.”- Tim Busfield Court filing.
And quote;
” The fact of the matter is that the parents driving the allegations against Mr Busfield have an extraordinarly checkered past that casts enormous doubt on the trufhfulness of their statements.
The timeline does not indicate an investigation naturally unfolding, but instead an express effort to seek revenge against Mr Busfield after losing the lucrative opportunity that came with their children’s acting ont the The Cleaning Lady.”- Tim Busfield court filing.
Now , we have to mention something , too, that Warner Brothers who was a partner in this production also had an independent outside investigation that was conducted and found quote;
no corroborating evidence of inappropriate conduct by Busfield on this production”
And in Busfield opposition filing he claims that ;
(the investigation)found not only that allegations against Mr Busfield were unfounded, but also that Angela Lasalle,after hearing that her children might not be returning for a fourt season, stated to the show’s lead actor quote;
That she would`get revenge against Tim Busfield.”
And when Stein last night , we believe he said there were actually two investigations,but there’s more , in the filing his legal team also argued that Busfield passed a polygraph examination when asked about the allegations and we believe polygraphs are admissible under New Mexico law.
They also claim that the findings of a psychosexual evaluation concluded that Busfield quote;
Does not appear to have a sexual attraction to prepubescent or adolescent males of females.”- Tim Busfield court filing
Now, with all that in mind Gilbert is now speaking out , and this is a 180 because when her husband initially turned himself into authorities her spokeperson had released the following statement at the time on her behalf.
Melissa Gilbert is not making public statements at the time , any purported “statements ” circulating online ( including AI – generated deepfakes of her breaking silence) should not be trated as coming from her , she is honoring the request of Tim’s lawyers not to speak publicly while the legal process unfolds .
During this period, her fcus is on supporting and caring for their very large family, as they navigate this moment, melissa stands with and supports her husband and will address the public at an appropriate time , we ask that their privacy be respected.”- spokesperson for Melissa Gilbert.
Well,now appears to be that appropriate time because she’s speaking out, right?
So, let’s talk about it.
This is a high profile case and the s trategy clearly for Timothy Busfield and his wife Melissa Gilbert is to go national,is to go public and to start spreading their theme that this is what they’re claiming is that this is made up .
This are false allegations, Timothy Busfield would never do anything like this and so, they’re really going to go on the PR blitz and try to convince the public that this didn’t happen,well , before the criminal trial even happens.
So, what is the risk of it?
That anything she say could be used against her husband or she’s called as a witness, anything she says can be used to impeach her credibility?
Absolutely , anytime you go public and give an interview those statements can be used in court.
So, Timothy Busfield when right around the time he was being arrested made a public statement about this, that can be used against him in court if he says something that turns out to be helpful to the prosecution.
Same with Melissa Gilbert, she says something that the prosecution thinks helps their case, they can play that video and use it to impeach her during the trial.
Was there anything that she said that was legally problematic?
She had her lawyer sitting right beside her,obviously they had prepared for this interview, she said all the things that ” my husband wouldn’t do this ,i know him incredibly well.
Though, the one thing that could be problematic is that she says that Timothy Busfield before they got married that he told her everything about these past allegations in his life.
Did he really ?
Because some of these victims have come forward only recently ,they were not news back in 2012 or 13 when they got married.
Did he tell her about those victims as well?
And to be clear.
It’s not like when they got married he told her about the allegations regarding these twin boys because that hadn’t allegedly happened yet.
And we guess the quesiton becomes it seems even you look at the at the prosectuion’s witness list , they’re planning a very expansive case where it’s not just about the allegations of the children but it’s about past allegations of Timothy Busfield, right?
And we don’t know if the court is going to ultimately allow that .
Let’s start there .
Is it going to be a big part of the case?
Are the judge actually going to allow that?
Well , that is going to be a close call, that is up to the judge .
That is in the court’s discretion whether they allow those prior complaints into his trial and that is a 50/ 50 proposition at this point .
If some of those come into this trial Timothy Busfield could be in very deep trouble and if none of those prior incidents come into this trial,okay ,he’s going to have an easier time in the criminal case,so, it’s going to be a huge ruling,it’s going to be litigated heavily and it’s close call.
But Melisa Gilbert is limited in her being calles as a witness, like if the prosecution wanted to call her there isn’t there a spisal privilege in terms of what he told her or she told him ,would she be called as a witness in any capacity by the prosecution?
She has the privilege of being a spouse so anything he may have admitted to her ,told her , she can assert the privilege .
Melisa Gilbert´s is probably not going to be a key witness in this trial, but she could as a witness for the defense -possibly.
One of the strategic reasons for them doing that is she’s Melisa Gilbert, right ? Little House on the prairie.
They hoping that the jurors like her, know who she is, have some empathy for her and she’s there to say my husband never did this , i know him better than anybody and they’re hoping that her celebrity status carries the day and gets him acquitted.
It was a part of the interview where she said basically , our lives are never going to be the same.
When someone’s accused of this it’s very hard in the court of public opinion from a PR persective to ever wash yourself of that , even if the charges are dropped even if he’s acquitted.
Was that part of ther speaking out as well?
and do people have already made up their minds regarding Timothy Busfield from a PR point of you a carreer point of view?
Was it important for her to do this?
She probably absoultely was giving this interview to generate sympathy to generate some buzz out there that they looke at these allegedly false allegations have destroyed our lives and that Timothy Busfield will never work again.
That he’s been canceled, absolutely, probably that’s one of the big reasons why she did that interview.
Do people make up their minds as soon as they hear these allegations? absolutely they do.
Let’s face it , the second it comes out Timothy Busfield molested boys on the movie set , a lot of people in our society and righteously so sometimes they say , okay, i’m done with him.
And this raises a larger question , so first of all , yes , he’s innocent till proven guilty, these are allegations, Larry Stein mentioned on NewNation show Jesse weber primetime, basically said it’s only the account of these children, not both in terms of allegations of molestation.
Here’s the part we was thinking, we circle back , you don’t usually criminal defendants do this, you don’t usually see their spouses do this because the evidence could be arguably strong , and they don’t want to do anything to taint the defense.
We was wondering , did she come out and do this because they believe that the prosecution’s case is weak?
When Jesse Weber intervewed Stein, he made the point that since the judge released Busfield given these allegations, it may show how weak the case is.
We mentioned it before, the independent investigation allegedly found no corroborating evidence of sexual abuse.
That , Larry Stein came on NewNation show and he said basically that look how this child accuser first said nothing happened. and then made the allegation that the parents pressured the children to make up this account.
And so , when you see Melissa Gilbert doing an interview like this, does that signify to you that they believe the prosecution’s case is weak?
And is the prosecution’s case weak?
Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield and that legal team absolutely believe that the prosecution case is weak .
And that’s one of the reasons why they ‘re doing these interviews.
Remember this , that Busfield took a lie detector test right around the time he was arrested and in New Mexico ,those lie detector tests can be admissible.
We don’t know what questions he was asked and who administered it, and whether it was a legitimate lie detector test , you have to assume it was.
That’s powerful evidence, and it’s things like that make you, you know ,look a little more closely at the allegations in this case.
And truly,we’ve read a lot on the case,this case just standing alone,if you just look at those allegations , it’s paper thin.
It is a very ,very thin, weak case for the prosecution, it just is.
There’s not a lot there.
Lookig at this case, we would have to accept, if we go forward Busfield’s defense or at least what was articulated by Mr Stein, that these parents are pushing a falsehood, that they are deliberately lying about what happened ,and pressuring their children to go forward , that would be a crime for them to do that.
Is that going to be a part of the defense?
do you put the parents on the sthe stand?
Do you cross -examine them about i laid out all their alleged past.
And there are the accusations that were put forward by Timothy Busfield’s team, do they become a central figure in this ?
Is that going to be a tough road to argue that these parents are lying because they were upset that the children were not renewed on the show.
Essentially , you’re accusing the parents of … the best way to say it, but lying and potentially committing a crime.
Busfield’s laywers have come right out and called them straight -up liars.
That’s going to be a central part of this case, they are going to go on the attack, they are going after these parents and let’s face it , there’s some things there that plays into Busfield’s favor.
This is things that are in the public realm, as the father in California, he was convicted of wire fraud.
And back in the 2008- 9 timeframe when we had this home mortgage crisis and the home crisis, he was running a law firm that duped many,many, homeowners out of thousands of dollars, and he went to prison for it.
And he lost his law license because of it , so ,he’s a checkered history as well.
We hate to say it, we’ve seen parents coach their young children to say things that are not true,we seen it, we have seen it happen.
You look at divorce cases where the spouses are going after each other and one of them coaches the kid to say something against the other spouse.
It happens and so , Busfield has some legitimate arguments here that these two boys were potentially coached into saying that he’s actually abused them.
The point Jesse Weber made to Stein on his show is we’ve seen this time and time again , the other way of looking at it is the counterargument is alleged vicitms can come forward or not come forward.
They sometimes say ” hey , nothting happened.” and then they come back years later,days later, months later and say ” no , this really did happen.”
There’s a number of different reasons why they may deny being abused, and then ultimately say it happened,it’s very complicated, so we wonder how much that’s going to play into this case too.
Those are the two competing themes, and there’s no doubt about it that children, especially young children , is called delayed disclosure.
And most kids who are sexually abused, they don’t tell right away, for a lot of different reasons,they don’t think anyone will believe them , they’re scared, they’re not quite sure what happened ,they don’t know that this is a sexually inappropriate act cuz they’re too young to realize it .
But they know something’s wrong, they think their parents are going to get mad at them, so, delayed disclosure absolutely happens all the time with young victims of sexual abuse and it’s not unsual at all.
The other part of that’s not unusual is that victims often , they don’t come right out and say
” here’s everything that happened sexually that they did to me , and here’s the timeline for it”
they’re kids,they don’t keep timlines, they don’t have this perfect sense of timing in their head and so, things come out in bits and pieces over time,that is totally normal, and that’s exactly what the prosecution’s going to argue in this case.
So, accoring to Deadline , we have a pretrial conference that is set for April 22 nd there is a May 2027 trial date that was put on the calendar earlier this year.
Are those dates going to stay and what can we expext?
Those dates will stay , thayt’s a year from now for a trial date , so there’s no reason why that wouldn’t go forward.
So, yes, we wouldn’t suprise if we see some public statements from Busfield’s legal team over time.
They’re going to keep trying to put things out there as they get closer to the trial to try to to sway public opinion.
Not sway a jury , though , right ?Not sway a jury .
Because they’re not supposed to do that ,right? they’re supposed to affect jury selection based on comments , but how does it work in practice?
So , unless the prosecution goes into the court and complains and says ;
Hey, look,they’re doing these interviews and it’s tainting the the Jury pool…”
a judge can then issue a basically a gag order and say ;
I don’t want any of the lawyers talking about this case anymore, and i dn”t want any of the parties to give interviews anymore”
That definitely happens.
When Melisa Gilbert says that her husband is eventually going to speak out, seemingly about the past allegations, but now is not the time , what does meant?
You think it means he’s going to take the stand?
in this case, we would be suprised if he took the stand because his biggest vulnerability, if he were to get on the witness stand, is those prior complaints.
And so , if he were testifying and he somehow opened the door to those things that would be devastating .
So ,we’d be surprised if he ever takes the stand on this case .
And look, that was another thing from Melissa Gilbert’s interview that is kind of an eyebrow- raiser;
“anytime someone says ” you know,he’s got a very good explanation for this prior complaints,but we’re not going to talk about them right now ,it’s not the right time “
Why isn’t it the right time?
That’s what we want to know about , so we think she’s just dodging that issue .
Or if he were to be acquitted or the charges were dropped, then he would probably go on GMA or do an interview and explain all that .
So,we think he’s waiting for the criminal case to be resolved.
We wil see where this goes ,this is just a big development, we think it was very interesting she did this interview.
How can we not talk about it?