Timothy Busfield’s professional fallout continued Tuesday following the child sex abuse charges against him in New Mexico, as NBC officially recast his “Law & Order: SVU” guest role with David Zayas.
The “Dexter” star is handling reshoots on the episode that was previously scrapped after Busfield’s arrest, TheWrap has learned. NBC is scheduled to air the installment as the series’ Season 27 return after NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage on Feb. 26. It was originally scheduled to air Jan. 15 and was pulled after Busfield’s charges were made public on Jan. 9.
Busfield was charged with two counts of child sex abuse last month in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from alleged incidents on set of “The Cleaning Lady.” The incidents involved two minor twin boys who acted on the Fox series. He directed six episodes of the series from 2022 to 2025 and executive produced 14 episodes.
The “SVU” episode is titled “Corrosive.” “An attempt on a respected judge’s life is connected to an anonymous video posted to the SVU tip line,” NBC’s logline reads. “Rollins (Kelli Giddish) tries to help a victim come to terms with their abuse.”
The long-running NBC crime series is not the first project to shoulder Busfield out ahead of airtime. Amazon MGM’s upcoming rom-com “You Deserve Each Other” also confirmed last month that it will be editing out Busfield’s role entirely. Th co-stars Penn Badgley and Meghann Fahy and featured Busfield as the actress’ father. While it’s done shooting, no release date has been set.
The actor was also dropped by his longtime agency representatives at Innovative Artists.
Busfield’s wife, Melissa Gilbert, however, has publicly remained by his side through a pretrial hearing that led to his release. And in a Jan. 26 Instagram post, she Melissa Gilbert shared thanked their supporters for seeing them through an “extraordinarily difficult time.”
Next month’s episode of “SVU” marks Zayas’ second time guest starring on the procedural, following a 2002 gig as “Det. Milton.” He most recently appeared in Edgar Wright’s Glen Powell-starring “The Running Man” and again in “Dexter: Resurrection.”
Give Me My Remote first reported the news of Zayas’ casting.
