American actor Alec Baldwin could be charged again in the fatal shooting on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021, prosecutors said on Tuesday, while criminal manslaughter charges against the actor were officially dropped in April.
A grand jury, a commission of citizens with investigative powers in the United States, must decide in the next two months whether or not to indict him again.
On October 21, 2021, the filming of the western “Rust” in New Mexico turned into drama when Alec Baldwin aimed a gun that was supposed to only contain blank bullets, but a very real projectile killed camerawoman Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza .
“After an extensive investigation over the past several months, new facts have come to light that we believe establish Mr. Baldwin’s criminal complicity in the death of Halyna Hutchins and the shooting of Joel Souza,” prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis said Tuesday .
Alec Baldwin has maintained his innocence from the start. The 65-year-old actor has always maintained that he was assured that his weapon was harmless and also denied pulling the trigger.
However, ballistics experts hired by the prosecution concluded that Alec Baldwin must have applied some pressure on the trigger for the weapon to fire.
The film’s gunsmith, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, is already charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence and has pleaded not guilty ahead of her trial scheduled for 2024.
In early October, the film’s producers were ordered to release certain documents, including Alec Baldwin’s contracts.
Prosecutors had argued to a judge that this information, including how “Mr. “Baldwin himself benefits financially from low production costs” could be relevant to the investigation.
Alec Baldwin and the film’s other producers are also facing multiple civil lawsuits from around ten plaintiffs over the death of Halyna Hutchins.
Filming on Rust resumed in April in Montana, with Halyna Hutchins’ widower Matthew as executive producer. In October 2022, he dropped the civil case against Alec Baldwin based on a settlement, the amount of which was not disclosed.