The elderly father of Rust gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is pleased with the sudden dismissal of Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter case. He believes his daughter’s conviction should now be quashed as well.
Legendary Hollywood gunsmith Thell Reed, 81, spoke exclusively to DailyMail.com and said Hannah has been made a “scapegoat” for the tragic death of producer Halyna Hutchins, 42, in October 2022.
Reed said, “Well, I think that’s good [Baldwin’s dismissal]I think Hannah’s case should also be dismissed.
“There is a lot of evidence that has not been heard at all. They have suppressed all the important evidence and I think that [Baldwin’s] lawyers have brought it forward.’
Legendary Hollywood gunsmith Thell Reed, 81, said his daughter Hannah’s case should be dismissed after Alec Baldwin’s trial on the same charges was dismissed
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed wipes away tears at her sentencing on April 15, 2024, where she was sentenced to 18 months in prison
Rust gunsmith poses for a photo after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter
Hannah, 27, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in April after being convicted of one count of involuntary manslaughter.
She is currently serving her sentence in the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility and was scheduled to testify in Baldwin’s case.
Reed told DailyMail.com he hopes the dismissal of Baldwin’s case will now give his daughter the chance to appeal her own conviction, saying she has been made a scapegoat by prosecutors.
He added: ‘It should [be grounds for an appeal]. She did nothing wrong. They absolutely made her a scapegoat.’
Baldwin, 66, faced a possible prison sentence of nearly two years if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Hutchins’ death.
The Ukrainian mother of one was shot in the chest during a rehearsal at the Bonanza Creek Ranch just outside Santa Fe during the filming of Baldwin’s western film Rust.
Director Joel Souza, 51, was also injured in the incident but made a full recovery.
Shocking footage from the abruptly terminated Baldwin trial shows the aftermath of the shooting, with Hutchins seen being treated by doctors on the set.
Camerawoman Halyna Hutchins died after being struck by a bullet from the prop gun Baldwin was holding on the Rust film set in October 2021
Thell Reed said he was “fine” with Alec Baldwin’s case being dismissed (pictured Friday reacting with his attorney), but added that his daughter’s case “should be dismissed as well.”
Baldwin burst into tears and hugged his wife Hilaria as his involuntary manslaughter case was sensationally dismissed
Moments earlier, Baldwin – dressed in full Western costume in his role as the eponymous Harland Rust – had been filmed brandishing his Pietta .45 Colt pistol.
The replica weapon was supposed to contain only blanks, but it was later discovered that it contained at least one live round.
He later claimed that he had not touched the trigger and that the gun could only have been fired by “sabotage.” However, an FBI investigation found that the gun could not have been fired from half-loaded, as Baldwin claimed.
Hannah, then working on only her second film as a weapons craftsman, was the first to be charged by prosecutors in her case, later accused of “a flurry of security breaches.”
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, the same judge who dramatically threw out Baldwin’s case, said during her sentencing that she had “turned a safe weapon into a deadly weapon” by not keeping live ammunition away from the set.
She added: ‘You were the gunsmith, the one who stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone.
“You alone turned a safe weapon into a deadly weapon. Without you, Mrs. Hutchins would still be alive, a husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother.”
Photos taken by Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office detectives show the aftermath of the October 2021 incident
The case was sensationally dismissed on Friday over a disagreement over bullets being admitted as evidence
The 66-year-old actor became emotional when he heard on Friday that the case against him was dismissed
Baldwin holds hands with his wife Hilaria as he leaves the courthouse Friday, moments after his manslaughter case was dismissed by a judge
Halls, who had given the gun to Baldwin and told him it was “cold,” accepted a plea deal and was charged with a felony count of negligent use of a deadly weapon.
He was also required to testify against Baldwin and served six months of unsupervised probation, paid a $500 fine and performed 24 hours of community service.
Baldwin was the last person to appear in court in connection with Hutchins’ death and, like Hannah, was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
He had already pleaded not guilty to the charges in January and the first day of the trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, began with prosecutors accusing him of “reckless disregard for the safety of Ms. Hutchins.”
But the trial ended in dramatic fashion today, with the defense successfully arguing that the case should be dismissed because the prosecution had failed to share all the evidence with them, particularly the bullets brought by retired police officer Troy Teske. He said they were the same type of bullets used in Baldwin’s gun.
Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office on the day of the shooting, faced two charges.
Moments before the judge’s ruling, the court heard that one of the two special prosecutors, Erlina Johnson, had left the case
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said in her ruling that dismissal with prejudice was a “very extreme sanction” but that the threshold had been met.
She said the “withheld evidence” had “affected the fundamental fairness of the case” and that prosecutors were “very culpable” for the errors and had “unilaterally” suppressed details about the ammunition.
The judge said it was a “deliberate and purposeful withholding of information” that “came so close to bad faith as to show signs of searing prejudice” and that there was “no way for the court to right this wrong”.
District Attorney Kari Morrissey countered that they had already interviewed Teske last year and that they were skeptical of him because he is a good friend of Reed.
Morrissey said they concluded that Teske was sending them on a “wild goose chase” to place the blame on someone other than Hannah.
She said, “It’s a man [Thell Reed] He tried to protect his daughter and in doing so gave information that did not even match the evidence found at the crime scene.