- Prosecutors announced formal charges against Alec Baldwin for the 'Rust' shooting on Tuesday.
- One of the charges is typically associated with reckless gun play like Russian roulette, an expert said.
- Prosecutors disagreed that the gun misfired, casting doubt on Baldwin's claim from a 2021 ABC interview.
The charges announced Tuesday against actor Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed mean New Mexico prosecutors saw an added layer of recklessness behind the fatal shooting on the set of "Rust" in August 2021, one trial expert told Insider.
Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed were formally charged on Tuesday with two charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection to the shooting, which resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. They each face a five-year sentence if convicted of the more serious charge: involuntary manslaughter with a firearms enhancement.
"That's the type of charge you typically see when someone is playing Russian roulette, for very reckless criminal behavior involving firearms," Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Insider.
In their statements of probable cause, the prosecutors alleged that Baldwin ignored multiple safety trainings and that Gutierrez-Reed ran a "reckless" set, allowing unqualified crew members to handle guns and missing crucial safety checks. Their attorneys denied the allegations.
'Reckless disregard'
In an announcement for the formal charges Tuesday, Robert Shilling, a special investigator for New Mexico's First Judicial District Attorney's Office, said that Baldwin "acted with reckless disregard and/or more than mere negligence in this incident."
Shilling added that Baldwin did not follow protocol and "acted with willful disregard of the safety of others and in a manner that endangered other people and he clearly should have known the danger of his actions which led to the death of Hutchins."
Hutchins died after a bullet from Baldwin's gun struck her in August 2021, when the actor was practicing for a scene where he aimed a Colt.45 at the camera. Prosecutors also cut a plea deal with assistant director David Halls, who pleaded guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon. The charges were first announced earlier this month.
Rahmani said that a jury will be tasked with determining how negligent or liable Baldwin was in handling and firing the gun.
"Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun – or anywhere on the movie set," Luke Nikas, an attorney for Baldwin, told Insider earlier this month. "He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win."
"Hannah is, and has always been, very emotional and sad about this tragic accident. But she did not commit involuntary manslaughter," lawyer Jason Bowles previously told Insider in a statement. "We intend to bring the full truth to light and believe Hannah will be exonerated of wrongdoing by a jury."
Prosecutors brush aside claims from Baldwin's ABC interview
The charging documents also explain why Baldwin's claims in the aftermath of the shooting don't hold up in the eyes of prosecutors.
In a December 2021 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin claimed that he never pulled the gun's trigger, and that he only cocked the gun's hammer back and it misfired. But prosecutors on Tuesday cited an FBI ballistics report testing the firearm, which said that there was no malfunction with the weapon.
"This analysis clearly showed that the weapon could not 'accidentally fire;" for the weapon to fire, the trigger had to have been depressed/ pressed," prosecutors wrote in charging documents for Baldwin.
Giving a big interview with bold claims months after the shooting, with an investigation underway, might have harmed Baldwin in the long run, Rahmani added.
"Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos in that interview that he did not pull the trigger, but the FBI ballistics report suggests otherwise that he did actually pull it," Rahmani told Insider. "That's why you shouldn't do those types of interviews, that's where on the PR and legal side of things there is a disconnect."
