Jan. 18, 2026
NEW: Imprisoned Actor Timothy Busfield Takes Aim At Accusers: "History of Fraud and Dishonesty"
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RSS Feed Emmy award winning actor Timothy Busfield wants out of jail as he fights child sex abuse charges. Busfield just filed a motion that details the criminal history of the parents accusing Busfield of inappropriately touching their twin boys on the set of “The Cleaning Lady.” In addition, Busfield submitted results of a lie detector test he voluntarily took and a psychosexual evaluation he underwent, hoping to support his insistence of innocence.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks.
00:00:10
Speaker 2: It is Sunday, January eighteenth, and just doing a little Sunday reading. An actor, Timothy Busfilled is defending himself. He is making his case for why he should be out of jail, but also making his case of why no charges should be brought against him at all. In a new filing, he says, the parents of the kids accusing him are fraudsters and absolutely full of shit. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ rolls. They don't hold back in this new filing. They flat out say these parents are fraudsters, they have a pattern of this, and here is our evidence.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: This was remarkable Sunday morning reading.
00:00:50
Speaker 4: I have to say I looked at you and I said, nothing like a Sunday morning court filing. But this was like none other. I was I couldn't put it down. I was fascinated. These are serious allegations that he is leveling at the parents of the twin boys who he stands accused of sexually.
00:01:10
Speaker 3: It's not assault, it's.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: Two counts of improper contact with a minor contact.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: Okay, there you go.
00:01:17
Speaker 4: So he's accused of fondling touching these young boys. But what he's accusing their parents of and he provides in this court filing a significant amount of proof to back up what he's saying. He's not just saying, hey, I heard this, there are rumors about X, Y and Z.
00:01:31
Speaker 3: No, he actually has proof.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: Isn't it always fascinating. We watch a lot of court cases. But you hear one side he go, oh my goodness, this is overwhelming.
00:01:40
Speaker 1: It looks bad.
00:01:41
Speaker 2: And you hear the other side and go, oh, wait a minute, they're right actually, and this is what we have had. So we have had an overwhelming at least at this point, Ropes, it's kind of been one sided. Tim Busfield, Timothy Busfield, the actor, has not set a whole lot up to this point. He made a court appearance. He made that short video in which you said, I'm innocent of these charges. This is several pages of a court filing in which he is defending himself against these allegations. And a reminder, folks, Two boys, twin boys who worked with him when he was a director on a show, The Cleaning Lady that was on Fox. This was in twenty twenty four, but the boys were seven to eight years old, claim that he touched them tickled them, if you will, quote unquote, and touched their butt, touched their penises. All this stuff, some awful stuff is in there. He said, he is not guilty. He is sitting in jail right now, Rose because he made his first court appearance last week and the judge denied bail because the prosecution said he's a threat to society.
00:02:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, they wanted pre trialed attention, and they said they did not think that he given his grooming methods and this new allegation they put forth in their court filing from the father of a then sixteen year old.
00:02:49
Speaker 3: Apparently this happened according to the father, twenty five years ago.
00:02:53
Speaker 4: So all of this they said, or at least the prosecutor's office said, amounted to. They fell like the need for the protection and safety of the public, They needed Timothy Bussfield to remain behind bars until his trialph.
00:03:07
Speaker 1: Some strong language.
00:03:08
Speaker 2: Again, most people are familiar with him the show thirty something he won an Emmy for That was in the nineties, but then West Wing. He had a very prominent role on that show as well. Broke they said in that initial five in the prosecution like he shouldn't be any child within proximity of this guy is in danger. The language didn't words strong.
00:03:29
Speaker 4: I mean we were jaws dropped reading what the prosecution was saying and speaking about this very familiar, seemingly likable guy. But you know what you mentioned his prominent roles. He is a prominent wife Melissa Gilbert, who is, of course, from the famed show Little House in the Prairie. She played Lori Ingles Wilder, a sweet America's sweetheart truly in the eighties and nineties. She not just is standing by her man, she is defiantly defending him.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: And again to put in context for those that don't know, because I'm one fair enough don't understand the show you were talking about. But I didn't know, I wouldn't have readily known her name or the character's name. This woman is pop culture television, American icon absolutely absolutely iconic. But they've been married both their third marriage.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: More than a decade.
00:04:20
Speaker 4: Okay, more than twenty fifteen, I believe, so eleven years is how long they have been married. But they talk about their love story. We'll get into what this court filing was because it was a lot. I mean, it involved lie detector test, it involved he went through an analysis of his psycho sexual.
00:04:37
Speaker 3: Analysis, that what it was called.
00:04:39
Speaker 4: I didn't even know there was a doctor who could go through what you're like sexually. So he put forth a ton of evidence all just to say, Hey, I don't want to be behind bars while I await this trial.
00:04:52
Speaker 2: So we got you called up, so let's start right there then, rope. So, yes, what we're talking about, folks is here. Over the weekend, his attorneys have filed a response. This is a opposition to the motion for pre trial detention. He is going to be on court on Tuesday. That's the first time he's going to be able to make an argument for why he should not be held while this whole criminal process is going on. And so we'll go through some of this motion and rose they start flat off a criticizing, strongly criticizing everything the prosecution has so far done, saying, quote, the motion asks the court to imprison a man based on a story that has already collapsed under independent scrutiny. They set the stage right off the top about what they're about to go after, yep.
00:05:30
Speaker 4: And then it goes on to say the state offers no reliable proof, only allegations advanced by witnesses with documented histories of fraud and financial exploitation, contradicted by a comprehensive studio investigation, and refuted by witnesses and objective risk assessments. The Constitution does not allow liberty to be forfeited on such a foundation.
00:05:55
Speaker 3: And that actually makes a lot of sense.
00:05:58
Speaker 4: Think about it. What proof did the pro secuter's office. I mean, they put forth a very damning based on the allegations from these parents. Now they did say the kids talked to therapists, or at least a therapist, but there is no proof beyond really that he said or they said he said.
00:06:20
Speaker 2: So what we read through here. They could also be or almost rogues be making a case here. If this was a trial, you could they were laying out their case here. But they're laying out a case here that you don't even you don't have enough evidence to hold him, like even we're not even going with guilt or innocence. Yet we're saying the guy has a right to be out in.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: The presumption of innocence presumption.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: And you're going with just somebody's story.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: That's the thing they are arguing, at least in this the evidence here, there is not enough that justifies keeping him in jail. Now they go after the state a lot robed in this filing, saying they have moved forward detention based not on the facts of this case or the characteristics of mister Bussfield, but instead on the nature of the allegations that the state has lodged. They are doing it not based on what we know, but just based on allegations that you have. And that's the argument they're making to a judge. Look, we are not legal experts, but we look at a lot of legal cases, and man, they make a good.
00:07:20
Speaker 4: They do make a good point, and that does make sense. It's not based on the evidence. It's not based on the facts, it's based on the nature. So yes, it's such an abhorring thing to think about that somebody would take advantage of their position of power and abuse children or make children feel horrific and be a threat or a danger to children. I get that the nature of what the allegations are. But he does have that presumption of innocence.
00:07:43
Speaker 2: You said, based on allegations, But they also make the argument is based on routine like this is just what the prosecutors do.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: I thought that was a hell of a point to make.
00:07:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't realize this, but they said, hey, this is not this shouldn't be this standard operating procedure.
00:07:57
Speaker 3: The standard operating procedure should be that people should.
00:07:59
Speaker 4: Be given an opportunity to post bail and to have their freedom while they await and prepare for the charges leveled against them. But they say, this particular prosecutor has asked for pre trialed attention in every single case in the.
00:08:16
Speaker 3: Past six months, so it is routine.
00:08:18
Speaker 4: It is standard for this prosecutor to just go ahead and say pre trialed attention instead of looking at it on a case by case basis.
00:08:26
Speaker 3: That is interesting.
00:08:27
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting too, They said, to make our point, check out this YouTube video in which, yes, they have the prosecutor's office doing some interview in which they say, yeah, this is kind of routine, this is what we do, and yeah, they use the word routine. I thought that wasn't interesting as well. But they tell they say this prosecutor, this is some of the strongest language here, robes making essentially an accusation that they are going for the headlines, They're going for attention and press. They said, these allegations failed to stand up to scrutiny at every level and demonstrate only the state's commitment to the salacious and ultimately false narrative it placed in the national and international media.
00:09:02
Speaker 1: Robes. You said it a narrative.
00:09:04
Speaker 2: There is a story line that's building about him because only one side was talking, one side and then Twitter. You know what I'm saying. It's one side is talking and then everybody's just buzzing and there's no real informty. We know how that goes, and it's gone crazy. But now he's getting a chance to defend himself and it absolutely flies in the face a lot of a lot that's out there.
00:09:24
Speaker 3: It does.
00:09:24
Speaker 4: And it's interesting the way they said that they put the prosecutor's office put this narrative in the national and international media beginning on Friday when they said there was a warrant out for his arrest.
00:09:34
Speaker 3: That is true.
00:09:35
Speaker 4: Think about so many other cases where we have no details, we don't know what the allegations are. They're protected because there are potential sexual assault victims. You know, this was we got We got it all. Like we read everything.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: It was. It was salacious.
00:09:52
Speaker 2: And robes putting it in the headlines, putting in the narrative. They also attacked them for I said the eye the Marshal's office, like you didn't have to send the US Marshall service. They made the case that, hey, we were in contact with you within hours of these charges being fired.
00:10:08
Speaker 3: That's not what was said to the public.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: Said we were collaborating, we were working, we were doing it. He did exactly what he was supposed to do, which was listening to council by shutting up and going and turning himself in. It was in New Mexico. He said, all this was being worked out. Y'all sent Marshalls beat down his door towards stuff down.
00:10:27
Speaker 1: They said it was all for show.
00:10:29
Speaker 4: Sure, wow, And you know what I was thinking about this because they also criticized him publicly for taking the time to drive all the way to New Mexico from upstate New York. But you and I have had a little bit of experience of when people are looking for you.
00:10:45
Speaker 3: Paparazzi getting that photograph is everything.
00:10:47
Speaker 4: Him walking into an airport that would have been almost impossible.
00:10:53
Speaker 2: But they knew where the suggestion is. You knew where he was. He wasn't a FUSIONI from Justice. We were in touch with.
00:11:00
Speaker 3: And he was headed there. He just given his.
00:11:03
Speaker 4: Status, given the fact that you just put this out there for everybody, him walking into an airport, him getting on an airplane, that would have been horrific.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Hotly, you know that.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: So the section here of their filing robes that they spend the most time is on the allegations and who is making them, in particular the parents. They say the States case rests almost entirely on the accounts of two stage parents they name them, both whose children were recast from the cleaning Lady in twenty twenty four. These witnesses are not neutral observers. Their allegations emerged only after the loss of the twins' role, and only after consultation with civil counsel, creating an obvious financial and retaliatory motive. That motive must be evaluated against the couple's well documented history of fraud and dishonesty and robes they get into that alleged history of fraud, dishonesty and even criminal charge.
00:11:54
Speaker 4: It's remarkable, actually, So the dad, mister Ronald Rhodis, is a formal attorney for attorney excuse me, who was convicted of federal conspiracy.
00:12:04
Speaker 3: And wire fraud. They claim.
00:12:06
Speaker 4: He was later disbarred following that prosecution for a multimillion dollar scheme where he used his law license to deceive vulnerable victims for profit. Federal court records established he pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud arising from a mortgage modification enterprise that defrauded more than fifteen hundred homeowners of approximately six million dollars.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: That is not nothing. That is not a small thing.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: This is not a small time crime. This is not writing a bad check here there, And then look.
00:12:36
Speaker 3: At the mom. The mom allegant this is insane too.
00:12:40
Speaker 4: The children's mother, Angel or Angel LaSalle has an equally disturbing history. Miss LaSalle has multiple civil judgments entered against her for fraudulent and dishonest behavior.
00:12:55
Speaker 3: This is crazy.
00:12:56
Speaker 4: In twenty eleven, Miss LaSalle was sued for various claims including fraud, conversion, fraudulent transfer, among other claims. They're talking about a four hundred thousand dollars in gambling depths.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Between the two of them.
00:13:07
Speaker 4: Then they get into this whole thing where she apparently sold a Bentley that she had already sold to someone else for ninety thousand bucks, but then had illegally repossessed and then traded it for a poor she put in her mom's.
00:13:19
Speaker 1: Name, and then they couldn't touch it.
00:13:21
Speaker 4: It's crazy, bottom line criminal charges for check kiiting and vegas.
00:13:25
Speaker 3: I mean, these are two people who have.
00:13:27
Speaker 4: A documented legal history of criminal fraudulent behavior.
00:13:31
Speaker 3: There's no question.
00:13:33
Speaker 4: I could not believe when you looked into the history of these two people putting these allegations out there, how did the prosecutor's office not How were they not aware of this?
00:13:43
Speaker 1: They had to be aware. Isn't impossible?
00:13:45
Speaker 4: Could like, why would that not have also then put into question their narrative?
00:13:51
Speaker 2: But roll you go that. I have to believe. I have to that the prosecution knew about this. How could you possibly go through this higher public spectacle and put this man's entire career, his wife's career, and the legacy all on the line, and you're not quite sure they gotta be. I am really hoping the prosecution knew about all this.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: They're not. Maybe they're not the best victims to come forward.
00:14:18
Speaker 4: Look, I get that you might not have a convenient victim, but this throws their statements, even from a jury's standpoint, into.
00:14:27
Speaker 3: Total a nebulous place. You can't just take their word for it when they.
00:14:32
Speaker 4: Have a history of deception for money.
00:14:37
Speaker 2: This is overwhelming as far as their background and their history and documentation, at least according to this filing. They also mentioned in this filing the investigation that Warner Brothers did that completely cleared him, and they say the state knows about this investigation. It absolutely flies in the face of everything they're trying to do, and they're moving forward with it anyway. I thought it was interesting ropes they threw in here as well. A statement from the director of photography that he worked with just another nugget here. I guess in building their narrative that the parents weren't quite right.
00:15:09
Speaker 4: I thought this was really interesting. So this was from the director of photography. He said the twins' parents were odd. The father, Ronnie, creeped me out. He was pushy and manipulative. He would force the twins to give me a hug every single time I saw him on set. He thought I was important and it seemed like he wanted me to really like the boys. I always thought it was very creepy and unhealthy to force a child to give someone a hug. Ronnie was very overbearing. He had a power business alpha male attitude.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: But that means against one person's observation. But still, but.
00:15:43
Speaker 4: It's important because if you're gonna have all of these allegations leveled against Timothy Busfield, you have to at least put into question the people who are making those allegations and how people regarded them.
00:15:52
Speaker 3: I also thought it was.
00:15:53
Speaker 4: Interesting that in this filing they say there's no evidence that Timothy Bussfield asked the children call him Uncle Tim. In fact, people on the set said they only heard the father call him Uncle Tim to the boys, but that Timothy Bussfield never.
00:16:11
Speaker 3: Went by that.
00:16:11
Speaker 2: This is setting up a much different narrative than the one we have been getting. But stay here, folks, when we come back at the bottom of this filing. Was something that was very significant about this filing. Timothy Bussfield went through two things. One he had a polygraph. Two he had what's called a psychle sexual evaluation that was supposed to determine his sexual attraction, possibly to children. Yes, that's a thing, folks. Stay here, will tell you the results of those two tests. Stay here, all right, folks. We continue here on this Sunday here on January the eight, Yes, a couple days away. Timothy Busfield supposed to be back in court to try to get out of jail where he has been held since turning himself in on to face two charges of improper contact with a minor Ropes. He filed this report, This motion to oppose pre trial attention going to be heard on Tuesday. He could be getting out, but a part of this is making his case for why he shouldn't be held. We talked about making the case against the people who are bringing the charges against him and the other investigations. But a big part of this was to show one that he took a polygraph and two that he was evaluated by a sex therapist, if you will, to determine what they call a cycle sexual evaluation and an able assessment, which is an objective measure of sexual interest based on visual reaction time, but trying to see if you're attracted to children, if you're a pedophile, if that's what it is.
00:17:55
Speaker 3: So there was a test that could determine that.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: But it's a commonly used one and I'm sure we go back through ASBU episodes. It's probably throughout their planning. But first the polygraph which he went ahead and took.
00:18:06
Speaker 4: Yes, he voluntarily submitted, voluntarily submitted to that polygraph on January thirteenth, that was.
00:18:11
Speaker 3: The day he turned himself in.
00:18:14
Speaker 4: No deception indicated and he was asked very specific questions.
00:18:18
Speaker 3: He was you know how they do it.
00:18:19
Speaker 4: They can really monitor, there's a baseline, and that is significant. And the fact that he even underwent one. A lot of people won't do it, they don't trust the results. He did it, and that says something. Also, the psycho sexual evaluation and able assessment, the doctor came to the conclusion that mister Bussfield does not appear to have a sexual attraction to pre pubescent or adolescent males or females.
00:18:44
Speaker 3: That's also of significance.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: It's worth putting in there. These were supposed to be independent doctors who did this. They included that information. Is that relevant? Who knows, but it's in there. But this is all right now, Rope. This is not about him defending himself at a trial. This is just about getting out of jail, which he's trying to do. On Tuesday, which I was we were kind of surprised to hear that he wasn't going to be allowed to get bond of any kind and to hear that he was a threat to any child in his proximity.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: Jesus.
00:19:10
Speaker 4: The way the prosecutors, I shouldn't say spun the story, but in a way, yes, it sounded like he was the most dangerous person in America and couldn't be let free or be around within you know, a ten foot radius of any child. That's what you felt like when you read their court filing. But it was also a note seventy five letters of support, among them one from his wife, but a lot of former cast members, people who've worked with him over the years, people who have had children around him over the years. Melissa Gilbert goes into a long description about how he was with her then teenage son, who was, you know, a teenage boy who had troubles and problems, and how Timothy Bussfield was, you know, a mentor to him and helped him and guided him and his love and his sweetness. And she begged the judge to protect her sweet husband. She went, she didn't just give a letter of support. She was effusive.
00:20:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know these stories, what do you do his name?
00:20:09
Speaker 2: We always say there's rogues, like his name is out there what does this do to him moving forward if all of this is one hundred false. Yeah, I mean he still has been stained and this story is going on, and then what if there's something wrong? What if he has done something wrong? What if he had We just don't know. It's awful, awful in a case like this. But two things Roes we talked about when he did turn himself in. One the fact that he had driven across the country in two, that he did that video before he turned himself in. In the prosecutions filing, they made clear they took issue with that.
00:20:45
Speaker 1: I was surprise how much they went off about how much that irked them.
00:20:47
Speaker 3: They were upset about that.
00:20:48
Speaker 4: But like I said, I understand the driving cross country because when you were being chased and harassed, the last thing you want to do is be in a massive public space. So I actually understand that as long as he was in communication with them. But in terms of the video, I understand that too, because everyone's saying the worst possible things about you.
00:21:06
Speaker 3: I would.
00:21:07
Speaker 4: I mean, our biggest regret in everything even we went through, which doesn't compare to this, was that we didn't speak out, that we didn't speak up, that we didn't tell our side that we didn't say, hey, what you're hearing is wrong, And I think that is everyone's right to be able to do that. If you stand accused of something that horrific, I have zero issue with you taking ten minutes to say I didn't do this.
00:21:31
Speaker 2: They mentioned that in this filing his defense team, and I kind of understood it that they made the point, you're making you all of the state, and you're saying you're opposed to the First Amendment.
00:21:40
Speaker 1: Like he's had the right to speak.
00:21:41
Speaker 2: What are you arguing about, Like there's a problem with him defending himself. And yah, that was a weird one, but they threw that in as well. But folks, yes, we're off tomorrow. The country, as I should say, it's the national holiday of courts will be closed, so not much going on. But he is going to be in court on Tuesday making an argument to get out of jail while this process goes forward. We just wanted to hop on because this was a significant update to a story that has a lot of interest right now. So we appreciate you spending some time with us. As always, for now, I'm TJ. Holmes on behalf of my dear Amy Robot, We will talk to you all real soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks.
00:00:10
Speaker 2: It is Sunday, January eighteenth, and just doing a little Sunday reading. An actor, Timothy Busfilled is defending himself. He is making his case for why he should be out of jail, but also making his case of why no charges should be brought against him at all. In a new filing, he says, the parents of the kids accusing him are fraudsters and absolutely full of shit. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ rolls. They don't hold back in this new filing. They flat out say these parents are fraudsters, they have a pattern of this, and here is our evidence.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: This was remarkable Sunday morning reading.
00:00:50
Speaker 4: I have to say I looked at you and I said, nothing like a Sunday morning court filing. But this was like none other. I was I couldn't put it down. I was fascinated. These are serious allegations that he is leveling at the parents of the twin boys who he stands accused of sexually.
00:01:10
Speaker 3: It's not assault, it's.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: Two counts of improper contact with a minor contact.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: Okay, there you go.
00:01:17
Speaker 4: So he's accused of fondling touching these young boys. But what he's accusing their parents of and he provides in this court filing a significant amount of proof to back up what he's saying. He's not just saying, hey, I heard this, there are rumors about X, Y and Z.
00:01:31
Speaker 3: No, he actually has proof.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: Isn't it always fascinating. We watch a lot of court cases. But you hear one side he go, oh my goodness, this is overwhelming.
00:01:40
Speaker 1: It looks bad.
00:01:41
Speaker 2: And you hear the other side and go, oh, wait a minute, they're right actually, and this is what we have had. So we have had an overwhelming at least at this point, Ropes, it's kind of been one sided. Tim Busfield, Timothy Busfield, the actor, has not set a whole lot up to this point. He made a court appearance. He made that short video in which you said, I'm innocent of these charges. This is several pages of a court filing in which he is defending himself against these allegations. And a reminder, folks, Two boys, twin boys who worked with him when he was a director on a show, The Cleaning Lady that was on Fox. This was in twenty twenty four, but the boys were seven to eight years old, claim that he touched them tickled them, if you will, quote unquote, and touched their butt, touched their penises. All this stuff, some awful stuff is in there. He said, he is not guilty. He is sitting in jail right now, Rose because he made his first court appearance last week and the judge denied bail because the prosecution said he's a threat to society.
00:02:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, they wanted pre trialed attention, and they said they did not think that he given his grooming methods and this new allegation they put forth in their court filing from the father of a then sixteen year old.
00:02:49
Speaker 3: Apparently this happened according to the father, twenty five years ago.
00:02:53
Speaker 4: So all of this they said, or at least the prosecutor's office said, amounted to. They fell like the need for the protection and safety of the public, They needed Timothy Bussfield to remain behind bars until his trialph.
00:03:07
Speaker 1: Some strong language.
00:03:08
Speaker 2: Again, most people are familiar with him the show thirty something he won an Emmy for That was in the nineties, but then West Wing. He had a very prominent role on that show as well. Broke they said in that initial five in the prosecution like he shouldn't be any child within proximity of this guy is in danger. The language didn't words strong.
00:03:29
Speaker 4: I mean we were jaws dropped reading what the prosecution was saying and speaking about this very familiar, seemingly likable guy. But you know what you mentioned his prominent roles. He is a prominent wife Melissa Gilbert, who is, of course, from the famed show Little House in the Prairie. She played Lori Ingles Wilder, a sweet America's sweetheart truly in the eighties and nineties. She not just is standing by her man, she is defiantly defending him.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: And again to put in context for those that don't know, because I'm one fair enough don't understand the show you were talking about. But I didn't know, I wouldn't have readily known her name or the character's name. This woman is pop culture television, American icon absolutely absolutely iconic. But they've been married both their third marriage.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: More than a decade.
00:04:20
Speaker 4: Okay, more than twenty fifteen, I believe, so eleven years is how long they have been married. But they talk about their love story. We'll get into what this court filing was because it was a lot. I mean, it involved lie detector test, it involved he went through an analysis of his psycho sexual.
00:04:37
Speaker 3: Analysis, that what it was called.
00:04:39
Speaker 4: I didn't even know there was a doctor who could go through what you're like sexually. So he put forth a ton of evidence all just to say, Hey, I don't want to be behind bars while I await this trial.
00:04:52
Speaker 2: So we got you called up, so let's start right there then, rope. So, yes, what we're talking about, folks is here. Over the weekend, his attorneys have filed a response. This is a opposition to the motion for pre trial detention. He is going to be on court on Tuesday. That's the first time he's going to be able to make an argument for why he should not be held while this whole criminal process is going on. And so we'll go through some of this motion and rose they start flat off a criticizing, strongly criticizing everything the prosecution has so far done, saying, quote, the motion asks the court to imprison a man based on a story that has already collapsed under independent scrutiny. They set the stage right off the top about what they're about to go after, yep.
00:05:30
Speaker 4: And then it goes on to say the state offers no reliable proof, only allegations advanced by witnesses with documented histories of fraud and financial exploitation, contradicted by a comprehensive studio investigation, and refuted by witnesses and objective risk assessments. The Constitution does not allow liberty to be forfeited on such a foundation.
00:05:55
Speaker 3: And that actually makes a lot of sense.
00:05:58
Speaker 4: Think about it. What proof did the pro secuter's office. I mean, they put forth a very damning based on the allegations from these parents. Now they did say the kids talked to therapists, or at least a therapist, but there is no proof beyond really that he said or they said he said.
00:06:20
Speaker 2: So what we read through here. They could also be or almost rogues be making a case here. If this was a trial, you could they were laying out their case here. But they're laying out a case here that you don't even you don't have enough evidence to hold him, like even we're not even going with guilt or innocence. Yet we're saying the guy has a right to be out in.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: The presumption of innocence presumption.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: And you're going with just somebody's story.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: That's the thing they are arguing, at least in this the evidence here, there is not enough that justifies keeping him in jail. Now they go after the state a lot robed in this filing, saying they have moved forward detention based not on the facts of this case or the characteristics of mister Bussfield, but instead on the nature of the allegations that the state has lodged. They are doing it not based on what we know, but just based on allegations that you have. And that's the argument they're making to a judge. Look, we are not legal experts, but we look at a lot of legal cases, and man, they make a good.
00:07:20
Speaker 4: They do make a good point, and that does make sense. It's not based on the evidence. It's not based on the facts, it's based on the nature. So yes, it's such an abhorring thing to think about that somebody would take advantage of their position of power and abuse children or make children feel horrific and be a threat or a danger to children. I get that the nature of what the allegations are. But he does have that presumption of innocence.
00:07:43
Speaker 2: You said, based on allegations, But they also make the argument is based on routine like this is just what the prosecutors do.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: I thought that was a hell of a point to make.
00:07:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't realize this, but they said, hey, this is not this shouldn't be this standard operating procedure.
00:07:57
Speaker 3: The standard operating procedure should be that people should.
00:07:59
Speaker 4: Be given an opportunity to post bail and to have their freedom while they await and prepare for the charges leveled against them. But they say, this particular prosecutor has asked for pre trialed attention in every single case in the.
00:08:16
Speaker 3: Past six months, so it is routine.
00:08:18
Speaker 4: It is standard for this prosecutor to just go ahead and say pre trialed attention instead of looking at it on a case by case basis.
00:08:26
Speaker 3: That is interesting.
00:08:27
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting too, They said, to make our point, check out this YouTube video in which, yes, they have the prosecutor's office doing some interview in which they say, yeah, this is kind of routine, this is what we do, and yeah, they use the word routine. I thought that wasn't interesting as well. But they tell they say this prosecutor, this is some of the strongest language here, robes making essentially an accusation that they are going for the headlines, They're going for attention and press. They said, these allegations failed to stand up to scrutiny at every level and demonstrate only the state's commitment to the salacious and ultimately false narrative it placed in the national and international media.
00:09:02
Speaker 1: Robes. You said it a narrative.
00:09:04
Speaker 2: There is a story line that's building about him because only one side was talking, one side and then Twitter. You know what I'm saying. It's one side is talking and then everybody's just buzzing and there's no real informty. We know how that goes, and it's gone crazy. But now he's getting a chance to defend himself and it absolutely flies in the face a lot of a lot that's out there.
00:09:24
Speaker 3: It does.
00:09:24
Speaker 4: And it's interesting the way they said that they put the prosecutor's office put this narrative in the national and international media beginning on Friday when they said there was a warrant out for his arrest.
00:09:34
Speaker 3: That is true.
00:09:35
Speaker 4: Think about so many other cases where we have no details, we don't know what the allegations are. They're protected because there are potential sexual assault victims. You know, this was we got We got it all. Like we read everything.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: It was. It was salacious.
00:09:52
Speaker 2: And robes putting it in the headlines, putting in the narrative. They also attacked them for I said the eye the Marshal's office, like you didn't have to send the US Marshall service. They made the case that, hey, we were in contact with you within hours of these charges being fired.
00:10:08
Speaker 3: That's not what was said to the public.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: Said we were collaborating, we were working, we were doing it. He did exactly what he was supposed to do, which was listening to council by shutting up and going and turning himself in. It was in New Mexico. He said, all this was being worked out. Y'all sent Marshalls beat down his door towards stuff down.
00:10:27
Speaker 1: They said it was all for show.
00:10:29
Speaker 4: Sure, wow, And you know what I was thinking about this because they also criticized him publicly for taking the time to drive all the way to New Mexico from upstate New York. But you and I have had a little bit of experience of when people are looking for you.
00:10:45
Speaker 3: Paparazzi getting that photograph is everything.
00:10:47
Speaker 4: Him walking into an airport that would have been almost impossible.
00:10:53
Speaker 2: But they knew where the suggestion is. You knew where he was. He wasn't a FUSIONI from Justice. We were in touch with.
00:11:00
Speaker 3: And he was headed there. He just given his.
00:11:03
Speaker 4: Status, given the fact that you just put this out there for everybody, him walking into an airport, him getting on an airplane, that would have been horrific.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Hotly, you know that.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: So the section here of their filing robes that they spend the most time is on the allegations and who is making them, in particular the parents. They say the States case rests almost entirely on the accounts of two stage parents they name them, both whose children were recast from the cleaning Lady in twenty twenty four. These witnesses are not neutral observers. Their allegations emerged only after the loss of the twins' role, and only after consultation with civil counsel, creating an obvious financial and retaliatory motive. That motive must be evaluated against the couple's well documented history of fraud and dishonesty and robes they get into that alleged history of fraud, dishonesty and even criminal charge.
00:11:54
Speaker 4: It's remarkable, actually, So the dad, mister Ronald Rhodis, is a formal attorney for attorney excuse me, who was convicted of federal conspiracy.
00:12:04
Speaker 3: And wire fraud. They claim.
00:12:06
Speaker 4: He was later disbarred following that prosecution for a multimillion dollar scheme where he used his law license to deceive vulnerable victims for profit. Federal court records established he pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud arising from a mortgage modification enterprise that defrauded more than fifteen hundred homeowners of approximately six million dollars.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: That is not nothing. That is not a small thing.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: This is not a small time crime. This is not writing a bad check here there, And then look.
00:12:36
Speaker 3: At the mom. The mom allegant this is insane too.
00:12:40
Speaker 4: The children's mother, Angel or Angel LaSalle has an equally disturbing history. Miss LaSalle has multiple civil judgments entered against her for fraudulent and dishonest behavior.
00:12:55
Speaker 3: This is crazy.
00:12:56
Speaker 4: In twenty eleven, Miss LaSalle was sued for various claims including fraud, conversion, fraudulent transfer, among other claims. They're talking about a four hundred thousand dollars in gambling depths.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Between the two of them.
00:13:07
Speaker 4: Then they get into this whole thing where she apparently sold a Bentley that she had already sold to someone else for ninety thousand bucks, but then had illegally repossessed and then traded it for a poor she put in her mom's.
00:13:19
Speaker 1: Name, and then they couldn't touch it.
00:13:21
Speaker 4: It's crazy, bottom line criminal charges for check kiiting and vegas.
00:13:25
Speaker 3: I mean, these are two people who have.
00:13:27
Speaker 4: A documented legal history of criminal fraudulent behavior.
00:13:31
Speaker 3: There's no question.
00:13:33
Speaker 4: I could not believe when you looked into the history of these two people putting these allegations out there, how did the prosecutor's office not How were they not aware of this?
00:13:43
Speaker 1: They had to be aware. Isn't impossible?
00:13:45
Speaker 4: Could like, why would that not have also then put into question their narrative?
00:13:51
Speaker 2: But roll you go that. I have to believe. I have to that the prosecution knew about this. How could you possibly go through this higher public spectacle and put this man's entire career, his wife's career, and the legacy all on the line, and you're not quite sure they gotta be. I am really hoping the prosecution knew about all this.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: They're not. Maybe they're not the best victims to come forward.
00:14:18
Speaker 4: Look, I get that you might not have a convenient victim, but this throws their statements, even from a jury's standpoint, into.
00:14:27
Speaker 3: Total a nebulous place. You can't just take their word for it when they.
00:14:32
Speaker 4: Have a history of deception for money.
00:14:37
Speaker 2: This is overwhelming as far as their background and their history and documentation, at least according to this filing. They also mentioned in this filing the investigation that Warner Brothers did that completely cleared him, and they say the state knows about this investigation. It absolutely flies in the face of everything they're trying to do, and they're moving forward with it anyway. I thought it was interesting ropes they threw in here as well. A statement from the director of photography that he worked with just another nugget here. I guess in building their narrative that the parents weren't quite right.
00:15:09
Speaker 4: I thought this was really interesting. So this was from the director of photography. He said the twins' parents were odd. The father, Ronnie, creeped me out. He was pushy and manipulative. He would force the twins to give me a hug every single time I saw him on set. He thought I was important and it seemed like he wanted me to really like the boys. I always thought it was very creepy and unhealthy to force a child to give someone a hug. Ronnie was very overbearing. He had a power business alpha male attitude.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: But that means against one person's observation. But still, but.
00:15:43
Speaker 4: It's important because if you're gonna have all of these allegations leveled against Timothy Busfield, you have to at least put into question the people who are making those allegations and how people regarded them.
00:15:52
Speaker 3: I also thought it was.
00:15:53
Speaker 4: Interesting that in this filing they say there's no evidence that Timothy Bussfield asked the children call him Uncle Tim. In fact, people on the set said they only heard the father call him Uncle Tim to the boys, but that Timothy Bussfield never.
00:16:11
Speaker 3: Went by that.
00:16:11
Speaker 2: This is setting up a much different narrative than the one we have been getting. But stay here, folks, when we come back at the bottom of this filing. Was something that was very significant about this filing. Timothy Bussfield went through two things. One he had a polygraph. Two he had what's called a psychle sexual evaluation that was supposed to determine his sexual attraction, possibly to children. Yes, that's a thing, folks. Stay here, will tell you the results of those two tests. Stay here, all right, folks. We continue here on this Sunday here on January the eight, Yes, a couple days away. Timothy Busfield supposed to be back in court to try to get out of jail where he has been held since turning himself in on to face two charges of improper contact with a minor Ropes. He filed this report, This motion to oppose pre trial attention going to be heard on Tuesday. He could be getting out, but a part of this is making his case for why he shouldn't be held. We talked about making the case against the people who are bringing the charges against him and the other investigations. But a big part of this was to show one that he took a polygraph and two that he was evaluated by a sex therapist, if you will, to determine what they call a cycle sexual evaluation and an able assessment, which is an objective measure of sexual interest based on visual reaction time, but trying to see if you're attracted to children, if you're a pedophile, if that's what it is.
00:17:55
Speaker 3: So there was a test that could determine that.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: But it's a commonly used one and I'm sure we go back through ASBU episodes. It's probably throughout their planning. But first the polygraph which he went ahead and took.
00:18:06
Speaker 4: Yes, he voluntarily submitted, voluntarily submitted to that polygraph on January thirteenth, that was.
00:18:11
Speaker 3: The day he turned himself in.
00:18:14
Speaker 4: No deception indicated and he was asked very specific questions.
00:18:18
Speaker 3: He was you know how they do it.
00:18:19
Speaker 4: They can really monitor, there's a baseline, and that is significant. And the fact that he even underwent one. A lot of people won't do it, they don't trust the results. He did it, and that says something. Also, the psycho sexual evaluation and able assessment, the doctor came to the conclusion that mister Bussfield does not appear to have a sexual attraction to pre pubescent or adolescent males or females.
00:18:44
Speaker 3: That's also of significance.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: It's worth putting in there. These were supposed to be independent doctors who did this. They included that information. Is that relevant? Who knows, but it's in there. But this is all right now, Rope. This is not about him defending himself at a trial. This is just about getting out of jail, which he's trying to do. On Tuesday, which I was we were kind of surprised to hear that he wasn't going to be allowed to get bond of any kind and to hear that he was a threat to any child in his proximity.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: Jesus.
00:19:10
Speaker 4: The way the prosecutors, I shouldn't say spun the story, but in a way, yes, it sounded like he was the most dangerous person in America and couldn't be let free or be around within you know, a ten foot radius of any child. That's what you felt like when you read their court filing. But it was also a note seventy five letters of support, among them one from his wife, but a lot of former cast members, people who've worked with him over the years, people who have had children around him over the years. Melissa Gilbert goes into a long description about how he was with her then teenage son, who was, you know, a teenage boy who had troubles and problems, and how Timothy Bussfield was, you know, a mentor to him and helped him and guided him and his love and his sweetness. And she begged the judge to protect her sweet husband. She went, she didn't just give a letter of support. She was effusive.
00:20:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know these stories, what do you do his name?
00:20:09
Speaker 2: We always say there's rogues, like his name is out there what does this do to him moving forward if all of this is one hundred false. Yeah, I mean he still has been stained and this story is going on, and then what if there's something wrong? What if he has done something wrong? What if he had We just don't know. It's awful, awful in a case like this. But two things Roes we talked about when he did turn himself in. One the fact that he had driven across the country in two, that he did that video before he turned himself in. In the prosecutions filing, they made clear they took issue with that.
00:20:45
Speaker 1: I was surprise how much they went off about how much that irked them.
00:20:47
Speaker 3: They were upset about that.
00:20:48
Speaker 4: But like I said, I understand the driving cross country because when you were being chased and harassed, the last thing you want to do is be in a massive public space. So I actually understand that as long as he was in communication with them. But in terms of the video, I understand that too, because everyone's saying the worst possible things about you.
00:21:06
Speaker 3: I would.
00:21:07
Speaker 4: I mean, our biggest regret in everything even we went through, which doesn't compare to this, was that we didn't speak out, that we didn't speak up, that we didn't tell our side that we didn't say, hey, what you're hearing is wrong, And I think that is everyone's right to be able to do that. If you stand accused of something that horrific, I have zero issue with you taking ten minutes to say I didn't do this.
00:21:31
Speaker 2: They mentioned that in this filing his defense team, and I kind of understood it that they made the point, you're making you all of the state, and you're saying you're opposed to the First Amendment.
00:21:40
Speaker 1: Like he's had the right to speak.
00:21:41
Speaker 2: What are you arguing about, Like there's a problem with him defending himself. And yah, that was a weird one, but they threw that in as well. But folks, yes, we're off tomorrow. The country, as I should say, it's the national holiday of courts will be closed, so not much going on. But he is going to be in court on Tuesday making an argument to get out of jail while this process goes forward. We just wanted to hop on because this was a significant update to a story that has a lot of interest right now. So we appreciate you spending some time with us. As always, for now, I'm TJ. Holmes on behalf of my dear Amy Robot, We will talk to you all real soon.