EXCLUSIVE: The feds are now on the case to arrest Timothy Busfield on child sex abuse charges out of New Mexico.

“Albuquerque Police Department is working with the US Marshal Service to get Mr. Busfield into custody,” a spokesperson for the APD told Deadline today of the DOJ’s primary agency for fugitive investigations. ” I do not have a timeline,” Gilbert Gallegos, director of communications for the department added of when this could all go down.

An arrest warrant issued on January 9 charges Busfield with with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse.

Two 2014-born brothers who worked on Fox’s now cancelled The Cleaning Lady, which Busfield directed several episodes of and served as an EP, claim that the Emmy winning thirtysomething vet touched them  inappropriately. One of the boys, SL, told APD Officer Marvin Brown, who wrote up the extremely comprehensive warrant after a few months of investigation, that Busfield touched  his “penis and buttocks, masking it as play” on more than one occasion.

Not revealed until just last fall by the children’s parents, who had been in contact with at least one local law firm, the alleged misconduct by Busfield supposedly started when the boy was seven years old.

While the US Marshals’ HQ in Arlington, VA did not respond Monday to Deadline’s request for comment and information, law enforcement sources tell me Busfield, who lives in upstate New York with spouse Melissa Gilbert, could be brought into custody in the next few days. Busfield’s  Innovative Artists management also did not response to request for comment, but lawyers for Busfield are said to be preparing for his arrest, I hear.

The  68-year-old, Busfield, who was accused but never charged in two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012, may face from three to many more years in state prison if found guilty by a Land of Enchantment jury. Under New Mexico statutes, sentencing time and felony class can go up significantly in sex crimes if the crime involves children under 13 years of age — as it allegedly does in these cases..

Though Officer Brown proclaims in the warrant that “pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role, like Timothy, who, as a producer, exploited the hectic film sets,” Busfield himself has suggested there could be another motivation at work here.

In a November 3, 2025 phone interview with Busfield that’s cited in the dense 12-page warrant, the actor told Officer Brown that Cleaning Lady “lead actress, Elodie Young” informed him over a year ago that “the mother of SL and VL (sic) that she wanted revenge, and I’m going to get my revenge on Tim Busfield for not bringing her kids back for the final season.”

Earlier in 2025, Cleaning Lady producers Warner Bros TV launched a probe into Busflield’s behavior on the New Mexico set of the drama after an anonymous refers SAG-AFTRA hotline complaint about the actor/director “tickling and caressing the head and body of minor boys” on the Albuquerque-filmed Cleaning Lady. Upon his own reading of the outside law firm conducted investigation, APD Officer Brown said in the warrant that Solomon investigator “Christina McGovern was not able to talk with anyone who would support evidence that Timothy Busfield engaged in this behavior.”

As Busfield’s arrest and likely move back to New Mexico for an arraignment at the very least looms, NBC today yanked the January 15 episode of Law & Order: SVU that had the actor in a guest star role as a judge. Instead the Peacock network will push up the SVU episode that was originally set for January 22.