A New Mexico judge has wiped out a four-count indictment against Hollywood actor and director Timothy Busfield, ruling that prosecutors failed to run a fair grand jury and violated statutes meant to protect the process. The case involved alleged criminal sexual contact of a child tied to filming in Albuquerque, and the order leaves the door open for new charges.

Just The News reported that District Court Judge Joseph Montano dismissed the indictment after Busfield’s lawyers moved to quash it. Montano found the prosecutor in charge of the grand jury presentation did not act impartially, a finding that triggered a presumption of prejudice under New Mexico grand jury rules.

The stakes sit at the core of criminal procedure. Grand juries are supposed to test probable cause with structural safeguards, not rubber-stamp a one-sided pitch. When those rules break, courts can dismiss an indictment without deciding whether the underlying allegations are true. That is what happened here.

What the indictment alleged

In February, a grand jury indicted Busfield on four charges of criminal sexual contact of a child. The accusations centered on claimed inappropriate touching of two children on the set of the TV series “The Cleaning Lady” while the production filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Fox News reported that the allegations involved 11-year-old twins and that Busfield has denied them. He is known for roles in “The West Wing” and “Field of Dreams,” and he has worked as both an actor and a director. The indictment did not produce a trial verdict. It never reached that stage.

Readers who follow high-profile entertainment cases often track parallel filings, including coverage of a Hollywood actor facing 24 felony counts in a separate minors case. Different facts, same public appetite for how courts handle celebrity defendants and child-related charges.

Busfield’s defense team pressed the court to dismiss the indictment on process grounds rather than on a full merits fight over the accusations themselves. Montano answered with a six-page order.

The judge’s findings on the grand jury

Montano held that the prosecutor “failed to act in a fair and impartial manner.” The problems went to how the grand jury was instructed and how witness requests were handled.

"In doing so, the grand jury proceedings were conducted in a manner that violated grand jury statutes designed to protect the structural integrity of our grand jury system and the presumption of prejudice applies."

Grand jurors asked to hear from witnesses the state did not present. Montano found the prosecutor failed to properly instruct the panel on the law for calling additional witnesses and failed to explain the subpoena requirement in a way that matched the statutes. In plain terms, the jury wanted more evidence paths open, and the court said the state’s handling closed those paths improperly.

Newsmax coverage framed the dismissal as rooted in prosecutorial misconduct and errors that undermined the grand jury process. That matches the core of Montano’s written findings. The judge did not clear Busfield after a trial. He struck the charging instrument because the path to the indictment broke the rules.

Similar “charges dropped” stories elsewhere show how evidence and procedure can force prosecutors to reset, as when Utah dropped a death penalty pursuit after DNA excluded a defendant in an older case. Process and proof still matter, even when the public wants a simple outcome.

What Montano said about evidence access

The order stressed that grand jurors are supposed to receive access to more evidence when the request fits the evidentiary standard. Montano rejected the idea that delay fears could justify shutting that down after jurors had already been alerted to the material.

"To the extent delays may result when the prosecutor disputes evidence requested by grand jurors, after they have been alerted to the evidence without objection, the Court finds the reliability of the grand jury system and the intent that grand jurors be given access to more evidence-as long as it complies with the evidentiary standard ­outweighs the potential delay in proceedings."

He added that the state’s actions were “not in line with either the letter or the spirit of the grand jury laws.” Those lines matter for conservatives who care about constitutional order and equal application of criminal rules. A grand jury is not a prosecutor’s private tool. It is a screening body with statutory guardrails.

Breitbart reported that Montano dismissed the four counts on Oct. 16 and that the charges stemmed from allegations of groping twin boy actors on the “Cleaning Lady” set. Busfield’s lawyers went further in describing the state’s approach.

"The state has abdicated its role of administering justice and instead pursued an indictment against Mr. Busfield at the cost of evidence, Mr. Busfield’s rights, and the independence and integrity of the grand jury."

That defense framing tracks the judge’s process critique even while the allegations themselves remain contested and unadjudicated on the merits.

Refile option still on the table

Dismissal of an indictment is not always the end of a case. Montano left the district attorney’s office room to file new charges and present the matter to a new grand jury. Fox News noted the state remains free to institute new criminal proceedings and that the DA’s office is evaluating options.

No public statement in the available material confirms a final decision on re-presentation. Investigators and prosecutors will need to decide whether they can fix the instruction and witness problems and return to a new panel. They will also need to determine what evidence they can lawfully present under the standards Montano flagged.

Celebrity legal trouble keeps drawing attention across the industry, including recent coverage of a former child star arrested on public intoxication and resisting charges in California. Different offenses and different courts, but the same demand for clean process.

For now, the operative result is narrow and procedural. The February indictment is out. The allegations were denied. No jury has decided guilt or innocence on the charged conduct. The court acted on grand jury integrity, not on a full trial record.

Why the process ruling lands hard

Child-related sex contact charges carry heavy public weight. That is exactly why charging rules must be followed with care. Conservatives who support aggressive prosecution of real abuse also support fair process, because shortcuts poison verdicts and destroy public trust.

Montano’s order treats the grand jury statutes as structural protections, not technicalities. When a prosecutor fails to instruct on witness calls and effectively withholds requested witnesses, the court said the presumption of prejudice applies. That is a serious institutional rebuke.

Other Hollywood-adjacent criminal cases continue to move through the system as well, including follow-up reporting after Jonathan Taylor Thomas was booked following an alleged kick during a Westlake Village traffic stop. The Busfield matter stands apart because the court stopped the case at the indictment stage over fairness defects.

The Albuquerque set allegations, the four counts, and the twin-children claims remain just that in the public record so far: allegations tied to a dismissed indictment. Busfield has strongly denied sexual abuse accusations. The judge’s six-page ruling focused on how the state got the case to a grand jury, not on a finding that the claimed touching happened or did not happen.

What comes next

The district attorney’s office may try again before a new grand jury. If it does, it will need to meet the instruction and evidence-access standards Montano described. If it does not, the dismissed indictment ends this charging cycle.

Courts elsewhere have also forced resets when proof or procedure collapsed, including a case in which a judge freed a 71-year-old Utah death row inmate after DNA exclusion. Different law, same principle: the state must earn its charges under the rules.

Names of the children were not released in the reporting. The prosecutor who ran the grand jury was not named. The full formal court title beyond Montano’s role as a New Mexico judge was not spelled out in the seed coverage. Those gaps do not change the holding that is public: the indictment fell because the grand jury process failed statutory fairness requirements.

Grand jury integrity is not a loophole for the powerful. It is a shield for everyone the state targets. When prosecutors cut corners to bag an indictment, a serious court should say so, throw out the defective charge, and make the state start over the right way if it can.