Timothy Busfield Surrenders to Police, Denies Child Sex Abuse Crimes in New Video: 'I'm Going to Fight It' By Colleen Kratofil, Julia Moore, and Sean Mandell 14

Actor Timothy Busfield has surrendered.

The actor, who is married to Melissa Gilbert and best known for his role as Danny Concannon on The West Wing, surrendered to police on Tuesday, Jan. 13, PEOPLE has confirmed.

“Timothy Busfield has turned himself in at the Metro Detention Center. He will be booked on his warrant,” Gilbert Gallegos, Director of Communications for Albuquerque Police Department, said in a statement.

Busfield filmed himself in a video obtained by TMZ.

“Hi everybody, it’s Tim,” the video began. “I’m sure most of you know, that are watching this, that I was ordered to come to Albuquerque – I’m here now. I got the call Friday night, I had to get a lawyer. Saturday I got in the car, drove 2,000 miles to Albuquerque. I’m gonna confront these lies. They’re horrible.”

He continued, “They’re all lies and I did not do anything to those little boys and I’m gonna fight it. I’m gonna fight it with a great team, and I’m gonna be exonerated, I know I am, because this is all so wrong and all lies.”

He concluded by saying. “So hang in there and hopefully I’m out real soon and back to work. I love everybody for supporting me, thank you.”

The video came four days after the Albuquerque Police Department issued an arrest warrant for the actor, 68, on Jan. 9.

In the warrant, obtained by PEOPLE, it alleged that Busfield engaged in unlawful sexual conduct with two boys, 11-year-old twins, whose identities were withheld from the public. The parents of the victims said the boys met Busfield on the set of the FOX series, The Cleaning Lady, after Busfield joined as a director in season 2 (which aired in 2022), according to the arrest warrant.

An investigation began on Nov. 1, 2024, after a doctor at the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) alerted police about alleged sexual abuse.

According to the warrant, Busfield “grew closer” to the boys. “It was reported that Timothy would tell his children to call him ‘Uncle Tim,’ ” the warrant alleged. Their parents told the officer “that they both discovered that there were allegations against Timothy of sexual assault against both women and minors.”

The mother asked her sons, “if anyone had ever touched them in a manner that made them feel uncomfortable. The children allegedly responded by asking, ‘You mean like Uncle Tim?’ ” according to the warrant. The parents were advised by an attorney to take the children to UNMH, where they say professionals suggested the boys “were groomed,” per the warrant.

At the time, the children did not disclose any sexual contact, Officer Brown said, but they did claim Busfield “would tickle them on the stomach and legs.” The case did not meet their acceptance criteria at the time.

On Oct. 3, 2025, the mother filed a police report and told Child Protective Services that “her children both disclosed that there was sexual abuse by Timothy from around November 2022 to Spring 2024.” However, according to the warrant, she was told that because physical abuse had not occurred, nothing could be done.

The mother told authorities on Sept. 2, 2025, and Sept. 22, 2025, that one of the boys told his counselor that Busfield inappropriately touched him.

When one of the victims was 10 years old, his therapist diagnosed him with moderate post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety following claims of “inappropriate touching.”

The therapist said the child began “having nightmares about the director touching him and waking up scared,” and claimed Busfield “had touched and rubbed his penis 3 or 4 times and appeared to be ashamed,” per the warrant.

He also suffered from bed-wetting and other behavioral issues, the warrant alleges.

According to the warrant, Busfield allegedly told police that the parents were upset their sons had been replaced with a younger actor who auditioned. Shortly after, he got a call from Warner Bros. informing him they were investigating a complaint.

The actor alleged that he’d been told by an actress on the show that the mother of the alleged victims “wanted revenge,” per the warrant.

When asked by investigators if he ever picked up or tickled the boys, Busfield allegedly said it was “highly likely that he would have” because he wanted “a playful environment.”

“It’s not allowed at all,” Busfield allegedly told investigators of touching on set. “There is no, there’s no protocol. I mean, I’m always around people, right? It would be, you know, in front of the parents.” 

“There would never be a weird moment about it. I don’t really remember picking those boys up,” he continued, per the warrant. “I remember picking up the boy who followed them. I’d pick him up, and he’d be giggling, and that would sort of get him ready to act.”

However, Busfield allegedly said he and his wife had a relationship with the boys and their parents “outside of work,” even buying them “Christmas gifts and were together on several social functions.”

The officer said in the warrant that after speaking to several people from the production, “I believe Timothy had the opportunity to be alone with SL while he was lying in the bed on the TV set.”

After receiving the results of the internal investigation by Warner Bros., it was documented that an individual “claimed to have witnessed the incident in the Hair and Make-Up trailer, executive producer/director Tim Busfield entered and kissed a minor male on the face as the minor was getting a haircut” in December 2024.

“In my training and experience, pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role, like Timothy, who, as a producer, exploited the hectic film sets to tickle and touch SL on his penis and buttocks, masking it as play,” officer Brown wrote in the warrant.

“He would invite the family to off-set gatherings, with his wife buying Christmas gifts to foster closeness, making SL feel special and dependent— classic grooming to erode boundaries, isolate the victim, and silence suspicions by blending abuse into normalcy,” Brown continued. “This dual tactic, charming parents while secretly violating the child, builds a web of complicity that is hard to unravel, delaying detection, as families trust the abuser’s facade.”

A representative at Warner Bros. Television told PEOPLE in a statement, “The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions. We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. [We] have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.