‘Rust’ Armorer Tried To Hide Cocaine After Being Questioned By Police In Fatal Shooting, Prosecutors Say
UPDATED with lawyer statement: Prosecutors in New Mexico say Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who faces an involuntary manslaughter charge in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchens on the set of the indie Western, attempted to hide a small bag of cocaine the night of the fatal shooting after she was questioned by police.
The claim comes in a new filing from special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis, who last week added a charge of tampering with evidence against Gutierrez-Reed, saying she “did transfer narcotics to another person with the intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of herself.” The type of drug was not ID’d at the time.
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The revelation came in a motion (read it here) on Thursday afternoon by prosecutors seeking to protect the identity of a witness who will testify about the drug transfer, saying the witness has concerns about “being subject to harassment from the media” in the high-profile case.
Prosecutors also said the witness, referred to as S1, fears their testimony will result in “being blacklisted from the film industry for coming forward with the information about the defendant. Specifically, S1 stated to undersigned counsel, ‘I will never be able to work in the film industry again.’ ”
Morrissey and Lewis said in a motion earlier this month that witnesses in the case will testify that Gutierrez-Reed was “drinking heavily and smoking marijuana in the evenings during the shooting of Rust,” and that she was likely hung over on the morning of October 21, 2021, when an antique gun loaded with a live round and held by star Alec Baldwin discharged during a rehearsal on the Bonanza Creek Ranch set, killing Hutchens and wounding director Joel Souza.
Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer Jason Bowles called those claims false, saying prosecutors “intentionally raised irrelevant inflammatory arguments in a further attempt to have the public unfairly prejudge this case against Hannah.”
Bowles also responded to the Thursday’s filing.
“A secret witness appears 20 months later? With no actual corroboration or evidence? And the state won’t identify the person?,” he told Deadline. “This is a throwback to the secret, star chamber prosecutions in England in the 15th century that were abolished. Like everything else with the state’s case and investigation, it’s full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.”
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