Rust armorer faces new evidence tampering charge as case gets even messier

Almost two years after the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film Rust, and the legal drama surrounding the situation hasn’t gotten any less thorny. Charges against Alec Baldwin, who wielded the gun, were dropped. First assistant director David Halls, who handed him the gun, took a plea deal for a misdemeanor charge. But the case against armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed persists, and a new charge for evidence tampering has been added on top of two existing charges for involuntary manslaughter, per CNN.

This comes after prosecutors suggested Gutierrez-Reed was “likely” hungover when handling the weapon due to the consumption of alcohol and smoking marijuana. Now, prosecutors claim that on or around the day of the shooting, Gutierrez-Reed “did transfer narcotics to another person with the intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of herself, and the highest crime was a fourth degree felony” (per Entertainment Tonight).

This new charge comes amid a rather messy situation for the prosecution, which has seen a fair amount of turnover in its ranks over the last two years. Most recently, lead investigator Robert Shilling was removed from the case and sent a pretty inflammatory email meant for his former bosses that accidentally ended up in defense attorney Jason Bowles’ inbox.

“Knowing full well the probability that this email may be subject to IPRA (Inspection of Public Records Act), I am compelled to respectfully offer the following,” read Shilling’s email, sent earlier this week (via CNN). “The conduct of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office during and after their initial investigation is reprehensible and unprofessional to a degree I still have no words for. Not I or 200 more proficient investigators than I can/could clean up the mess delivered to your office in October 2022 (1 year since the initial incident…inexcusable).”

Following the receipt of this email, Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey reportedly asked Bowles to delete the email. Instead, the defense has requested that the prosecution disclose all of Shilling’s emails to the special prosecutors and district attorneys involved with the case, as they’ve “lost faith that the State will voluntarily comply with its Brady obligations” and because “it appears that DA [Mary] Carmack-Altweis is still having involvement in the case, despite this Court’s unequivocal prior order” (per CNN).

Bowles has confirmed that Gutierrez-Reed will plead not guilty to the evidence tampering charge as well as the previous ones; he previously stated that the accusations that she was hungover on set were character assassination. “Something is rotten in Denmark. It is shocking that after 20 months of investigation, the special prosecutor now throws in a completely new charge against Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, with no prior notice or any witness statements, lab reports, or evidence to support it,” Bowles said in a statement to ET. “This comes on the heels of the state letting its lead investigator go, and the investigator raising serious concerns about the investigation in an email. This stinks to high heaven and is retaliatory and vindictive.”