Alec Baldwin's 'Rust' armorer requests prison release days before actor's involuntary manslaughter trial
Hannah Gutierrez Reed requested to be released from prison as her lawyer plans to ask for a new trial. The "Rust" armorer's team accused the prosecution of withholding evidence.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed is requesting immediate release from prison as the "Rust" armorer prepares to seek a new trial.
Gutierrez Reed's lawyer accused the prosecution of withholding "bombshell exculpatory evidence," which would have led to a "fundamentally different trial and likely a different outcome," according to court documents filed June 27 and obtained by Fox News Digital.
The armorer's team claimed the state did not disclose a report that found "unexplained toolmarks on critical surfaces of the trigger and sear" of the Pietta 45 Colt revolver replica used on the Western film set. Gutierrez Reed's attorney, Jason Bowles, pointed out that the marks were not "the result of the damage incurred during the FBI’s impact testing." The marks also "do not appear to be original manufacturing marks or use and abuse toolmarks based on [their] irregular orientation," according to the report.
The state "buried this information" and it was "never disclosed" to Gutierrez Reed or her legal team, Bowles wrote.
ALEC BALDWIN'S ‘RUST’ ARMORER SENTENCED TO MAXIMUM TIME IN FATAL ON-SET SHOOTING
Additionally, Bowles claimed the state then "called the expert at trial and sat idly by as he perjured himself during cross-examination."
The report showing the "unexplained" toolmarks would likely have "bolstered" Gutierrez Reed's defense, according to the court documents.
"Ms. Gutierrez Reed’s principal defense theory was that no one had committed a crime and that this was a tragic accident, and if there was any negligence, it was on the part of producers, as found by OSHA," court docs read. "This defense would have been imminently bolstered by a legally unforeseeable intervening cause – such as a firearm malfunction – that caused Ms. Hutchins’ death."
Fox News Digital has reached out to special prosecutors in the case for comment.
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Gutierrez Reed was responsible for the firearms on the Western film set where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on Oct. 21, 2021. Hutchins had been preparing a close-up shot when a gun Alec Baldwin was holding discharged.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sentenced Gutierrez Reed to 18 months in prison after she was convicted in March.
"I find that what you did constitutes a serious, violent offense," Sommer said after handing down the sentence. "It was committed in a physically violent manner. A fatal gunshot done with your recklessness in the face of knowledge that your acts were reasonably likely to result in serious harm."
"You were the armorer, the one that's to be between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Mrs. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother. Please take her."
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Gutierrez Reed's trial, which began Feb. 21, saw testimony from weapons experts, FBI and Santa Fe County authorities, and crew members who witnessed the fatal shooting. The prosecution largely focused on Gutierrez Reed's behavior as an armorer, alleging she didn't do her job correctly.
"Hannah Gutierrez knew that Baldwin was loose. She knew it," special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said during closing arguments. "She didn't do anything about it, even though it was her job. It was her job. It is her job to say to an A-list actor, if, in fact, that's what you want to call him, 'Hey, you can't behave that way with those firearms.' That is her job. That is what they pay her for. That is the job that she applied for. That is the job that she accepted."
Gutierrez Reed's legal team had told the jury that the prosecution hadn't presented enough evidence to convict the armorer of involuntary manslaughter.