An arrest warrant has been issued for actor and director Timothy Busfield, who is facing two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and an open count of child abuse.
Busfield, 68, is best known for playing Danny Concannon in The West Wing and has also appeared in films including Field of Dreams and Revenge of the Nerds.
The warrant has been issued in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where local station KOAT reports that one child told law enforcement that Busfield allegedly touched them inappropriately at the age of 7, according to court records.
Busfield was reportedly directing the Fox crime series The Cleaning Lady when the alleged acts took place, beginning in November 2022. The incidents allegedly occurred around five or six times.
Court documents show that Albuquerque police began their investigation of Busfield in November 2024 after staff at the University of New Mexico Hospital told police it appeared children were being groomed on the set of the television show.
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According to those records, two children at the hospital did not accuse Busfield of sexual contact but did state that “Uncle Tim” would tickle them on the stomach and legs, and that they did not care for the tickling.
Busfield was born in June 1957 in Lansing, Michigan, and studied drama at East Tennessee State University. He has worked extensively in theatre as an actor and director, with Broadway credits including A Few Good Men and Brighton Beach Memoirs.
In 1984, he played Arnold Poindexter in the frat house comedy Revenge of the Nerds and returned for the film’s 1987 sequel. That same year, he was cast in the acclaimed drama series Thirtysomething.
He has worked with writer and director Aaron Sorkin on several occasions, beginning with his role in the Broadway production of A Few Good Men in 1990.
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He directed several episodes of Sorkin’s ABC comedy-drama Sports Night, and from 1999 to 2006 appeared as the Pulitzer Prize–winning White House Correspondent Danny Concannon on The West Wing, the love interest to Allison Janney’s Press Secretary C.J. Cregg.
Busfield has been married three times. He has a son from his first marriage to actor and director Radha Delamarter. After they divorced in 1986, he married fashion designer Jennifer Merwin in 1988 and they had two more children. They divorced in 2007, and in 2013, he married Little House on the Prairie actor Melissa Gilbert.