The weapons supervisor on the film set where Alec Baldwin shot and killed a cinematographer has been accused of smoking and drinking in the evenings during filming.
Prosecutors claim Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was likely to have been hungover when she loaded a live bullet into the revolver the actor used when shooting a scene for Rust.
The accusations came on Friday in response to a motion filed last month by Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers that seeks to dismiss her involuntary manslaughter charge.
Buildings on the set of the movie Rust
The prosecutors accused her of having a history of reckless conduct and argued that it would be in the public interest for her to “finally be held accountable”.
Jason Bowles, Ms Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer, has said that the prosecution has mishandled the case.
“The case is so weak that they now have chosen to resort to character assassination claims about Hannah,” Mr Bowles told The Associated Press. “The prosecution has abandoned the idea of doing justice and getting to the actual truth apparently.”
A preliminary hearing for Ms Gutierrez-Reed is scheduled in August. A judge is expected to decide then if there’s probable cause for the Ms Gutierrez-Reed’s charge to move forward.
Halyna Hutchins was shot dead on the set of Rust
In the response, the prosecutors also noted that they expected to decide within the next 60 days whether to recharge Baldwin, depending on the results of an analysis of the gun and its broken sear. The items were sent to the state’s independent expert for further testing.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on the New Mexico film set in October 2021 when it went off, killing her and wounding the film’s director, Joel Souza.
The involuntary manslaughter charge faced by Baldwin, who also was a producer on the film, was dismissed in April, with prosecutors citing new evidence and the need for more time to investigate.