Imprisoned ‘Rust’ armorer seeks release after Alec Baldwin dismissal

By Andrew Hay

TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) – Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer imprisoned for the 2021 “Rust” capturing, on Tuesday filed a movement for her conviction to be dismissed after expenses in opposition to actor Alec Baldwin have been dropped on prosecutors withholding proof linked to the 2021 fatality.

A lawyer for Gutierrez stated the buried proof of stay rounds, and different info hid from protection legal professionals, have been grounds for dismissal or a brand new trial.

Ought to Gutierrez achieve success in her movement it might mark a whole unraveling of New Mexico’s felony prosecution of the rookie weapons handler and Baldwin for the dying of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The movement adopted the dismissal of expenses in opposition to Baldwin throughout his trial on Friday as a choose dominated prosecutors intentionally hid the existence of stay rounds handed into police that would reveal the supply of the spherical that killed Hutchins.

The Ukrainian director of images died when Baldwin’s gun fired a stay spherical inadvertently loaded by Gutierrez because the actor arrange a digital camera shot in a movie-set church southwest of Santa Fe, new Mexico.

In Gutierrez’s movement to dismiss, lawyer Jason Bowles stated he contacted state prosecutor Kari Morrissey in January requesting that the FBI check the stay rounds that have been ultimately handed into police on March 6, the day Gutierrez was convicted.

Bowles stated Morrissey responded by saying she didn’t plan to retrieve the rounds or check them as they seemed totally different to 6 stay rounds discovered on the set of “Rust.”

Three of the rounds handed in by Troy Teske, a good friend of Gutierrez’s stepfather Thell Reed, have been just like stay rounds discovered on the “Rust” set.

Bowles listed different cases of prosecutors failing to reveal proof to protection legal professionals, together with an interview with “Rust” props provider Seth Kenney and a supplemental report on Baldwin’s gun by firearms skilled Lucien Haag.

Decide Mary Marlowe Sommer should now schedule a listening to on Gutierrez’s movement to dismiss.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay; Modifying by Christopher Cushing)