Timothy Busfield, the American actor and director known for his role in The West Wing, has been indicted by a New Mexico grand jury on charges of child sex abuse, the prosecutor's office in Albuquerque has announced.
Busfield surrendered to authorities on 13 January after Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman filed a criminal complaint accusing the actor of abusing two boys over two years of production of the Fox crime drama The Cleaning Lady, when the boys were seven or eight years old.
The 68-year-old actor, in a video recorded before he surrendered, said the charges against him were "lies" and that he would be exonerated.
A judge ordered Busfield to be released from jail about a week later, ruling there was insufficient evidence for pre-trial detention.
Allowing prosecutors to proceed to a trial, a grand jury voted to indict Busfield on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child, a third-degree felony in New Mexico.
The indictment was not yet public on Friday morning, but the district attorney's original criminal complaint said Busfield allegedly abused the boys while filming The Cleaning Lady in Albuquerque, the state's biggest city.
Busfield was an executive producer of the show and also the director of some episodes.
Busfield is famous for his prime-time television roles as a White House reporter on the NBC political drama The West Wing, which ran from 1999 to 2006, and as an advertising agency executive on the 1980s ABC ensemble series Thirtysomething.
He is married to Melissa Gilbert, an actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild.
Source: Reuters
