As the one-year anniversary of Alec Baldwin’s shooting of a loaded weapon on the set of his Western film Rust draws near, the disgraced actor is now one step closer to facing criminal charges for the action which killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured the film’s director Joel Souza.
As per a letter sent by the official to the state’s Board of Finance and reviewed by CBS News, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has revealed that her office has found it “apparent that we will be potentially charging between one and four people with criminal charges [related to the death of Hutchins and injuring of Souza] and each of those charges will probably include some variation of our homicide statute.”
“One of the possible defendants is well-known movie actor Alec Baldwin,” she reportedly informed the Board while making an emergency funding request for $635,000 to continue the investigation, admitting that her team could go up against well-paid attorneys.
The Board would later approve the district attorney’s emergency request, though only partially, ultimately providing the investigation with only $317, 750 in additional funding.
“We are within weeks, if not days, of receiving the final report from the sheriff’s office,” said Carmack-Altwies while making her request to to the Board on September 20th. “This case could require up to four separate jury trials [and] look to be too big for just my office to handle. We need an almost full-time attorney and someone who is very experienced on complex cases and very experienced with litigation.
“The report coming in in October means we will be under the gun – no pun intended – to get moving on these cases and to get these cases charged if that is what the facts warrant,” she added.
In August, the FBI concluded that there was no way the 45 Long Colt caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver Baldwin was holding could have misfired, instead attributing its going off to the actor pulling the trigger.
“The gun could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional [and the firearm’s hammer was fully cocked],” the FBI declared, as per documents obtained by ABC News.
The investigation also ruled out the possibility that the gun, even if its hammer were in the quarter- and half-cock positions, “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger.”
“With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to detonate a primer ‘without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly,’ which is normal for this type of revolver,” summarized the outlet of the agency’s findings.
Following the publication of the FBI’s report, Baldwin shot off a statement via his attorney Luke Nikas, therein alleging that the findings were “being misconstrued”.
“The gun fired in testing only one time — without having to pull the trigger — when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places,” wrote Nikas. “The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition.”
In contradiction of the FBI’s conclusion, Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger that day.
However, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin contradicted his own version of the incident, initially declaring he cocked the gun’s hammer only to shoot himself in the foot moments later by claiming that he did not cock it.
“So I take the gun and I start to cock the gun,” Baldwin recalled. “I’m not going to pull the trigger. I said, ‘Do you see this?’ [Halyna Hutchins] says, ‘Well, just cheat it down and tilt it down a little bit like that.’ And I cock the gun and I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’”
He continued, “And she says…and I let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off,” later claiming that he did not cock the gun, but rather pulled “the hammer as far back as I could without cocking [it].”
Baldwin has been named in several legal complaints filed after the tragic shooting on the set of Rust.
The first legal suit filed against him was done on behalf of Serge Svetnoy, the film’s gaffer, who accused the actor, assistant director David Halls, armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, and other production team members of on-set negligence.
Later, in a separate legal suit, Rust script supervisor Mamie Mitchell alleged that Baldwin “intentionally, without just cause or excuse, cocked and fired the loaded gun even though the upcoming scene to be filmed did not call for the cocking and firing of the firearm.”
Filed by attorney Krystina Martinez on behalf of Hutchins’ husband Mathew, a third legal complaint not only accused Baldwin of having “recklessly shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust,” but also claimed that the crew’s disregard for basic safety rules contributed to the cinematographer’s death.
In early March, without an ounce of self-reflection, Baldwin outrageously claimed that these various litigants were not interested in justice, but only shaking him down for his money.
“What you have is a certain group of people, litigants and whatever, on whatever side, who their attitude is, ‘well the people who likely seem negligent have no money and the people who have money are not negligent,” declared the actor. “But we’re not going to let that stop us from doing what we need to do, in terms of litigation.”
“So we have people that are suing people that they think are deep-pockets litigants,” Baldwin asserted. “Why sue people if they’re not going to get money?”
