The U.S. Marshals have joined the search for missing actor and director Timothy Busfield, who is facing two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and an open count of child abuse.

Busfield, 68, is best known for playing journalist Danny Concannon in the HBO political drama The West Wing (1999-2006) and has also appeared in films including Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Field of Dreams (1989), and Quiz Show (1994).

An arrest warrant was issued in New Mexico on Friday after Busfield was accused of touching two juvenile actors inappropriately while working on the now-cancelled Fox crime series The Cleaning Lady (2022-25), on which he served as executive producer and directed several episodes.

“Albuquerque Police Department is working with the U.S. Marshal Service to get Mr Busfield into custody,” APD spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos told Deadline.

While Gallegos said he did not have “a timeline” for the fugitive’s apprehension, the outlet cites law enforcement sources as saying they expect him to be brought into custody within the next few days.

Timothy Busfield, pictured in New York in 2020, is facing allegations of child sexual abuse

Timothy Busfield, pictured in New York in 2020, is facing allegations of child sexual abuse (Getty)

If found guilty of the New Mexico charges, Busfield could face three to many more years in state prison.

The incidents over which he has been accused allegedly occurred around five or six times, beginning in November 2022.

Court documents show that the APD began its investigation into him 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 Cleaning Lady.

Busfield protested his innocence in a November 2025 phone interview with APD Officer Marvin Brown, cited in the 12-page arrest warrant affidavit, and made a counter-allegation, claiming that an actress on the show had told him that the mother of the two children in question had threatened revenge after they were written out of the project’s final season.

Deadline adds that Warner Bros TV, one of the production companies behind the show, launched its own investigation into the allegation against the star last year, but was unable to substantiate it.

Busfield as worked extensively in theatre as an actor and director, with Broadway credits including A Few Good Men and Brighton Beach Memoirs , and was cast in the Emmy-winning drama series Thirtysomething in 1987

Busfield as worked extensively in theatre as an actor and director, with Broadway credits including A Few Good Men and Brighton Beach Memoirs , and was cast in the Emmy-winning drama series Thirtysomething in 1987 (AP)

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, and was cast in the Emmy-winning drama series Thirtysomething in 1987.

He directed several episodes of Aaron Sorkin’s ABC comedy-drama Sports Night (1998-2000) and appeared in the same writer’s The West Wing as the love interest of Allison Janney’s White House Press Secretary CJ Cregg.

In the midst of the investigation into Busfield, an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that was to air this week and in which the actor was to star has been pulled. In it, Busfield was set to play a respected judge whose life is threatened after an anonymous video is posted to the SVU tip-line.

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.

He and Merwin divorced in 2007, and in 2013, he married Little House on the Prairie actor Melissa Gilbert, with whom he lives in Upstate New York.