Melissa Gilbert Shares First Social Media Post After Husband Timothy Busfield’s Child Sex Abuse Indictment Was Dismissed

Melissa Gilbert, actress and wife of Timothy Busfield, shared an Instagram post several hours after news broke that a New Mexico judge had thrown out Busfield’s child sex abuse indictment.

via: EW

The Little House on the Prairie alum posted a photo of a quote to her Instagram profile on Friday afternoon. The quote reads: “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

That exact quote is uttered by Gene Wilder near the end of 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and is one word away from a line of dialogue from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice spoken by Portia: “So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

Gilbert also shared a link to The New York Times’ article about the charges being dismissed on her Instagram Stories.

Authorities alleged that twin 11-year-old boys accused Busfield of inappropriately touching them when they worked together on Fox’s The Cleaning Lady as they issued a warrant for his arrest in January. One of the boys claimed that the West Wing alum, who served as a director and executive producer on The Cleaning Lady, touched his “private areas” on more than one occasion, and that same child was later diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety.

Busfield surrendered to authorities later that week and denied all allegations against him.

“I’m going to confront these lies,” the actor said at the time. “They’re horrible. They’re all lies. And I did not do anything to those little boys, and I’m going to fight it. I’m going to fight it with a great team, and I’m going to be exonerated.”

Busfield was indicted on four counts of sexual contact with a minor in February. He pleaded not guilty.

On Friday, Judge Joseph Montano of the Second Judicial District Court of New Mexico dismissed the charges from the indictment, finding that the lead prosecutor “failed to act in a fair and impartial manner,” per The New York Times. The judge said that the prosecutors failed to properly instruct the grand jury when it came to hearing from witnesses.

The prosecution still has the option to present the case to a new grand jury, according to the Times.

Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Nancy Laflin told EW, “Our office has received the order and is evaluating our options to determine how we will proceed.”

Gilbert, who married Busfield in 2013, has denied any wrongdoing by her husband and has stood by the actor throughout the case. After a representative for the actress issued a statement saying Gilbert wouldn’t be making any statements, the Little House star eventually discussed Busfield’s case in an interview with Good Morning America in April.

“This has been the most traumatizing experience of our lives. Our life as we knew it is done. We are grieving what we had. All of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects,” Gilbert said. “For Tim, it’s done. He’s canceled. Even if he’s exonerated, he will always be that guy. The last person in the world who would hurt a child. Believe me, if I thought for a second that Tim Busfield hurt a child, he’d have a lot more to worry about than prison.”

She added, “I know this man in my bones. No one knows him better than I do. I know literally everything about him…He is nothing if not completely honest with me. I trust him with my children’s lives, with my grandchildren’s lives, my nieces and nephews.”