Melissa Gilbert shared a line from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” on Instagram after a judge dismissed her husband Timothy Busfield’s child sexual abuse indictment, offering a brief public response to a ruling that leaves prosecutors free to bring new proceedings.
According to Page Six’s report on Saturday, Gilbert posted on Instagram on Friday: “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” The quotation followed New Mexico Judge Joseph Montano’s decision to throw out the indictment against Busfield, who denies the allegations.
The words come from Gene Wilder’s performance as Willy Wonka in the 1971 film. His character delivers the line after Charlie Bucket returns the Everlasting Gobstopper rather than betray him. Page Six described Gilbert’s post as an apparent response to the dismissal; the quotation itself did not discuss the court’s reasoning.
Gilbert, 62, and Busfield, 69, married in 2013. The “Little House on the Prairie” actress’s post was not a detailed account of the proceedings or a new statement from her husband’s legal team. Its connection to the case rested on its timing after Friday’s ruling.
The Busfield indictment dismissal concerned the handling of witnesses requested by grand jurors. It was not an acquittal or a determination of whether the underlying allegations were true.
ABC News reported that Montano found prosecutors had “failed to act in a fair and impartial manner” and had effectively withheld witnesses the grand jurors requested. The indictment contained four counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor.
The order expressly allowed the state to institute new criminal proceedings. Nancy Laflin, communications director for the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office, told ABC News that the office was evaluating its options. No decision to pursue another indictment was reported in that account.
The allegations concerned Busfield’s work on “The Cleaning Lady” in Albuquerque. The original January criminal complaint alleged two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and one count of child abuse; the subsequent grand jury indictment contained four sexual-contact counts. Those are separate stages of the case, not interchangeable descriptions of the charges.
Gilbert’s film quotation followed that legal reprieve. Whether prosecutors seek another indictment remains a separate question from her reaction and from the procedural defects that led Montano to dismiss the existing one.
