“Rust” case: Actor Alec Baldwin files lawsuit

In July 2024, the trial against US actor Alec Baldwin (66) was surprisingly stopped after the fatal shot at a camerawoman on the set of the western film “Rust” in 2021. At the end of December, the involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin was officially concluded. The Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office’s appeal, filed in November, has been withdrawn, according to a news release. The charges were therefore dropped. Now Alec Baldwin is taking action against the public prosecutor and the investigators in the case.

The actor has filed a lawsuit for “malicious prosecution.” According to a report obtained by court documents, he accuses prosecutors in the case and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office of “malicious abuse of process, intentional destruction of evidence and defamation and violation of the New Mexico Civil Rights Act.”

The parties in the trial were “blinded by their desire” to blame him as a scapegoat for the fatal shooting “for the wrong reasons and at any cost,” Baldwin said through his lawyers. He wants the defendants to be held accountable for their “malicious and unlawful prosecution” against him. According to People, Baldwin is suing for damages, the amount of which has yet to be decided.

“Prosecution is about the search for truth and justice, not about pursuing personal or political gain or victimizing the innocent,” Baldwin’s legal team told People magazine. The special prosecutor and the other defendants have repeatedly violated this basic principle and “trampled Alec Baldwin’s rights. We bring this lawsuit to hold the defendants accountable for their misconduct and to prevent them from doing this to others.”

Baldwin’s lawyers said in a joint statement to The Hollywood Reporter last December: “The decision to dismiss the appeal is the final confirmation of what Alec Baldwin and his lawyers have said from the beginning – this was an unspeakable tragedy, but Alec Baldwin committed no crime.”

The camerawoman Halyna Hutchins (1979-2021) was fatally shot in October 2021 while filming on the set of the western “Rust” by a live bullet from a revolver that Alec Baldwin was holding in his hand. The director Joel Souza (51) was injured at the time. The gun master responsible for the film set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (born 1997), was sentenced to 18 months in prison in April for involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin, who was also accused of negligent homicide, would also have faced this punishment.

In a conversation in December, he indicated that the matter was not yet over for Baldwin after the trial was discontinued. In the podcast “Fail Better” by David Duchovny (64), the actor announced: “There is more to come, but what is to come is my attempt, and it will undoubtedly be successful, to clarify and reveal what is really happening is.” The truth about what really happened was never told, Baldwin said.