‘Rust’ Armorer’s ‘Weed’ Texts, Tampering Charge Upheld by Judge

As Hannah Gutierrez speeds toward an involuntary manslaughter trial next week linked to Alec Baldwin‘s accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust movie set two years ago, a New Mexico judge sided with prosecutors Wednesday and upheld an evidence-tampering charge against the rookie armorer. The tampering charge, added to the high-profile case last June, alleges Gutierrez handed off a bag of cocaine to a fellow crew member within hours of Hutchins’ death.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said prosecutor Kari Morrissey successfully argued that the tampering and involuntary manslaughter charges were connected by the “same conduct or series of acts.”

“She brought live rounds onto a movie set. She failed to discover them for 12 days. She loaded one of them into a gun. It was then manipulated by an actor and very foreseeably someone died. She was taken to the police station to give a statement. After she got back from giving her statement, she took what appeared — and our witness would testify — was a bag of cocaine, handed it to her, and said, ‘Hang on to this for me,’ because she was under police investigation. It’s the exact same connection you would see with any tampering charge,” Morrisey had argued.

With the tampering charge allowed to remain, the judge then delivered a split decision on a related defense motion seeking to exclude a series of text messages allegedly depicting Gutierrez’s use of marijuana and cocaine during the days leading up to the Oct. 21, 2021, tragedy. The judge said some of the texts ran the risk of being more prejudicial than probative, but she said prosecutors could present jurors several messages retrieved from Gutierrez’s phone allegedly showing the armorer was smoking cannabis at her hotel during production.

“The relevant ones are the one where she’s smoking weed with ammo in the hotel room, and that she’s smoking in the jacuzzi,” the judge said during the nearly 90-minute pre-trial hearing. The ruling clearly includes texts that Gutierrez sent to a crew member the evening of Oct. 20, 2021, that read: “I might go smoke in the jacuzzi soon,” and, “Headed down to get high out back.”

Judge Marlowe Sommer said prosecutors could also bring in the “after the fact” texts that prosecutors allege show Gutierrez “handed off the cocaine” to the crew member the night of the shooting and then wanted it back a few days later. In one of the later texts, dated Oct. 23, 2021, Guttierez writes, “Hey, I might be coming to Albuquerque tonight and was wondering if I can get that stuff.” When prosecutors asked the woman what “stuff” Gutierrez was referring to, the woman purportedly responded, “a bag of cocaine.”

The judge handed a partial victory to the defense when she ruled that other, less-relevant texts proposed by prosecutors — including an Oct. 25, 2021, exchange between prop master Sarah Zachry and prop supplier Seth Kenney in which Zachry claimed Gutierrez was “blackout drunk” the weekend before the fatal shooting — would be kept out.

Gutierrez, 27, has pleaded not guilty. She contends she was unfairly assigned two jobs on the set — armorer and prop assistant to Zachry — and that she was denied the necessary resources and time needed to carry out her responsibilities by a penny-pinching production. She claims the real bullets that made their way on set did not come from her. Her lawyers have floated the theories she may have been the victim of sabotage and that the live rounds may have been supplied by Kenney, possibly via a bucket of mixed real and dummy ammunition that Kenney previously acquired from Gutierrez’s stepfather, the famed Hollywood armorer Thell Reed.

During the hearing Wednesday, defense lawyer Jason Bowles said Kenney “supplied rounds” to the Rust set and is considered his client’s “chief adverse witness.” He complained that prosecutors inadvertently shared a data dump of Gutierrez device with Kenney, potentially giving him access to attorney-client conversations about Gutierrez’s defense.  

“He’s tainted,” Bowles said Wednesday, referring to Kenney as a witness for the prosecution. “How can a defendant have a fair trial when a chief adverse witness has all of the attorney-client texts? … We can’t have a fair trial because of that, because of what’s happened.”

The judge decided Gutierrez signed a waiver that allowed the massive data dump and that while it was unfortunate prosecutors accidentally shared the dump with Kenney, it wasn’t grounds to halt the trial set to begin Feb. 21. In yet another adverse ruling to the defense, Judge Marlowe Sommer also said it was too late for the defense to bring in a new witness as an expert. Bowles wanted to put an armorer on the stand after the individual only recently reached out and offered to testify. Prosecutors argued there was no time to interview the witness and prepare.  

In a statement emailed to Rolling Stone, Bowles said he was happy with the judge’s ruling Wednesday that a defense expert will be allowed to reference a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that found a long list of safety issues on the Rust set. “We are pleased with the ruling that OSHA findings will be allowed in trial. We are evaluating our options as to the other rulings but respect the judge’s decision of course across the board,” Bowles wrote in his email.

Though Gutierrez is the first person to face trial over the horrific shooting at the Bonanza Creek Ranch just south of Santa Fe two years ago, prosecutors say others deserve blame as well. Baldwin pleaded not guilty last month to his own involuntary manslaughter charge after prosecutors dropped an initial case against him then returned with a follow-up indictment. As is well known by now, Baldwin accidentally discharged a prop weapon during a rehearsal inside a mock church, firing a live bullet that blasted through Hutchins and lodged in the shoulder of director Joel Souza. Hutchins, 42, was airlifted to a hospital but did not survive. Baldwin has claimed he didn’t pull the trigger on the .45-caliber Colt revolver.

Assistant Director Dave Halls, meanwhile, entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon last March. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Halls admitted to investigators after the shooting that he failed to check all chambers of the revolver before taking it from Gutierrez, declaring it a “cold gun” — meaning it had no live rounds — and handing it to Baldwin. Under his plea deal, Hall was due to serve six months of unsupervised probation. 

As Hannah Gutierrez speeds toward an involuntary manslaughter trial next week linked to Alec Baldwin‘s accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust movie set two years ago, a New Mexico judge sided with prosecutors Wednesday and upheld an evidence-tampering charge against the rookie armorer. The tampering charge, added to the high-profile case last June, alleges Gutierrez handed off a bag of cocaine to a fellow crew member within hours of Hutchins’ death.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said prosecutor Kari Morrissey successfully argued that the tampering and involuntary manslaughter charges were connected by the “same conduct or series of acts.”

“She brought live rounds onto a movie set. She failed to discover them for 12 days. She loaded one of them into a gun. It was then manipulated by an actor and very foreseeably someone died. She was taken to the police station to give a statement. After she got back from giving her statement, she took what appeared — and our witness would testify — was a bag of cocaine, handed it to her, and said, ‘Hang on to this for me,’ because she was under police investigation. It’s the exact same connection you would see with any tampering charge,” Morrisey had argued.

With the tampering charge allowed to remain, the judge then delivered a split decision on a related defense motion seeking to exclude a series of text messages allegedly depicting Gutierrez’s use of marijuana and cocaine during the days leading up to the Oct. 21, 2021, tragedy. The judge said some of the texts ran the risk of being more prejudicial than probative, but she said prosecutors could present jurors several messages retrieved from Gutierrez’s phone allegedly showing the armorer was smoking cannabis at her hotel during production.

“The relevant ones are the one where she’s smoking weed with ammo in the hotel room, and that she’s smoking in the jacuzzi,” the judge said during the nearly 90-minute pre-trial hearing. The ruling clearly includes texts that Gutierrez sent to a crew member the evening of Oct. 20, 2021, that read: “I might go smoke in the jacuzzi soon,” and, “Headed down to get high out back.”

Judge Marlowe Sommer said prosecutors could also bring in the “after the fact” texts that prosecutors allege show Gutierrez “handed off the cocaine” to the crew member the night of the shooting and then wanted it back a few days later. In one of the later texts, dated Oct. 23, 2021, Guttierez writes, “Hey, I might be coming to Albuquerque tonight and was wondering if I can get that stuff.” When prosecutors asked the woman what “stuff” Gutierrez was referring to, the woman purportedly responded, “a bag of cocaine.”

The judge handed a partial victory to the defense when she ruled that other, less-relevant texts proposed by prosecutors — including an Oct. 25, 2021, exchange between prop master Sarah Zachry and prop supplier Seth Kenney in which Zachry claimed Gutierrez was “blackout drunk” the weekend before the fatal shooting — would be kept out.

Gutierrez, 27, has pleaded not guilty. She contends she was unfairly assigned two jobs on the set — armorer and prop assistant to Zachry — and that she was denied the necessary resources and time needed to carry out her responsibilities by a penny-pinching production. She claims the real bullets that made their way on set did not come from her. Her lawyers have floated the theories she may have been the victim of sabotage and that the live rounds may have been supplied by Kenney, possibly via a bucket of mixed real and dummy ammunition that Kenney previously acquired from Gutierrez’s stepfather, the famed Hollywood armorer Thell Reed.

During the hearing Wednesday, defense lawyer Jason Bowles said Kenney “supplied rounds” to the Rust set and is considered his client’s “chief adverse witness.” He complained that prosecutors inadvertently shared a data dump of Gutierrez device with Kenney, potentially giving him access to attorney-client conversations about Gutierrez’s defense.  

“He’s tainted,” Bowles said Wednesday, referring to Kenney as a witness for the prosecution. “How can a defendant have a fair trial when a chief adverse witness has all of the attorney-client texts? … We can’t have a fair trial because of that, because of what’s happened.”

The judge decided Gutierrez signed a waiver that allowed the massive data dump and that while it was unfortunate prosecutors accidentally shared the dump with Kenney, it wasn’t grounds to halt the trial set to begin Feb. 21. In yet another adverse ruling to the defense, Judge Marlowe Sommer also said it was too late for the defense to bring in a new witness as an expert. Bowles wanted to put an armorer on the stand after the individual only recently reached out and offered to testify. Prosecutors argued there was no time to interview the witness and prepare.  

In a statement emailed to Rolling Stone, Bowles said he was happy with the judge’s ruling Wednesday that a defense expert will be allowed to reference a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that found a long list of safety issues on the Rust set. “We are pleased with the ruling that OSHA findings will be allowed in trial. We are evaluating our options as to the other rulings but respect the judge’s decision of course across the board,” Bowles wrote in his email.

Though Gutierrez is the first person to face trial over the horrific shooting at the Bonanza Creek Ranch just south of Santa Fe two years ago, prosecutors say others deserve blame as well. Baldwin pleaded not guilty last month to his own involuntary manslaughter charge after prosecutors dropped an initial case against him then returned with a follow-up indictment. As is well known by now, Baldwin accidentally discharged a prop weapon during a rehearsal inside a mock church, firing a live bullet that blasted through Hutchins and lodged in the shoulder of director Joel Souza. Hutchins, 42, was airlifted to a hospital but did not survive. Baldwin has claimed he didn’t pull the trigger on the .45-caliber Colt revolver.

Assistant Director Dave Halls, meanwhile, entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon last March. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Halls admitted to investigators after the shooting that he failed to check all chambers of the revolver before taking it from Gutierrez, declaring it a “cold gun” — meaning it had no live rounds — and handing it to Baldwin. Under his plea deal, Hall was due to serve six months of unsupervised probation.