New Mexico prosecutors have charged actor and producer Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter for the 2021 on-set shooting during the filming of Rust that killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who loaded the pistol which killed Hutchins, were both charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors said in a statement to VICE News. Each charge carries a maximum possible sentence of 18 months in prison.
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First assistant director Dave Halls, who handed Baldwin the gun, has pleaded guilty to “negligent use of a deadly weapon,” said the office of Mary Carmack-Altwies, the district attorney whose jurisdiction includes Santa Fe. A copy of the plea agreement was not immediately made available but includes a suspended sentence and six months’ probation, according to Carmack-Altwies’ office.
“If any one of these three people—Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez Reed or David Halls—had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today,” special prosecutor Andrea Reeb said in a statement to Variety. “It’s that simple. The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set. In New Mexico, there is no room for film sets that don’t take our state’s commitment to gun safety and public safety seriously.”
Luke Nikas, an attorney representing Baldwin, said in a statement to VICE News that the decision to charge Baldwin “distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice.”
“Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun–or anywhere on the movie set,” Nikas said. “He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win.”
Baldwin was producing and starring in the Western film Rust when he shot Hutchins and director Joel Souza, who was injured and later released from the hospital. Baldwin has repeatedly denied that he pulled the trigger and blamed the shooting on a malfunction with the gun, even after an FBI report released last summer concluded Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger for the gun to fire.
Baldwin and Hutchins’ family announced in October that they had settled and filming on Rust would resume, with Hutchins’ widower added as an executive producer. But Carmack-Altwies’ office requested more than $600,000 from a state board last year for potential prosecution of four people including “well-known movie actor Alec Baldwin,” and said in October that the settlement would have no impact on whether or not they would bring charges against Baldwin or anyone else.
“There is a very clear process for pursuing justice in this case,” Carmack-Altwies said in the statement to VICE News Thursday. “We are committed to upholding the integrity of that process to ensure equal justice under the law.”
