Law & Order: SVU Episode Pulled After Timothy Busfield Faces Child Abuse Charges

An upcoming episode of Law & Order: SVU has been removed from the broadcast schedule following serious criminal charges against actor and director Timothy Busfield.

The episode, titled “Fidelis ad mortem,” was set to air Thursday as part of the show’s currently running 27th season. Instead, NBC will air the following episode, “Career Psychopath,” which had originally been scheduled for later in the month. A representative for the long-running legal drama confirmed the scheduling change.

The decision comes days after Busfield was charged in New Mexico with two counts of criminal sexual contact involving a minor and one count of child abuse. According to a warrant, twin actors have accused Busfield of inappropriate conduct while working on the Fox crime series The Cleaning Lady.

One of the twins alleges that Busfield touched his genitals and buttocks during production. The accusations date back to November 2024, when a doctor at University of New Mexico Hospital requested an investigation after the boys’ mother raised concerns. She claimed her sons were “groomed” on set between 2022 and 2024, and that one of them later disclosed the alleged abuse to a counselor in 2025.

Busfield appeared onscreen in a single episode of The Cleaning Lady as an immigration officer, but his involvement behind the scenes was more extensive. He directed six episodes and served as an executive producer on the series, which stars Élodie Yung as a mother struggling to care for her chronically ill son while living in Las Vegas on an expired visa and working for organized crime.

In a statement released earlier, Warner Bros. Television, which produces The Cleaning Lady, emphasized its stance on safety. “The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions,” a spokesperson said, adding that the company takes all allegations seriously and is cooperating fully with law enforcement.

The controversy has also drawn attention to Busfield’s wife, Melissa Gilbert, best known for her role on Little House on the Prairie. Gilbert faced online backlash after fans resurfaced a social media post she shared in November, in which she spoke out forcefully against child sexual abuse while reflecting on her own experiences as a young actor.

In that post, Gilbert described feeling “nauseated” when looking back at a photo of herself as a teenager on set, writing, “I WAS A CHILD. I WAS FIFTEEN.” The day after a warrant was issued for Busfield’s arrest, Gilbert deactivated all of her social media accounts.

As the legal process moves forward, networks and studios are taking swift steps to distance their current programming from the accused actor, underscoring how allegations of this nature can have immediate and far-reaching consequences across the entertainment industry.