Alec Baldwin can now breathe easy. After almost a year and a half of legal problems, a judge for the district of New Mexico (USA) approved last Thursday the conciliation agreement between the actor and the family of the director of photography Halyna Hutchins, who died after being shot. perpetrated by Baldwin during the filming of Rust, a film they both worked on, in October 2021.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the economic details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but it has been revealed that part of the financial compensation will go to Andros Hutchins, son of the deceased, who was only nine years old when his mother lost her life. However, the child may not be compensated until reaching the age of majority.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid assures the aforementioned media that "the agreement is fair, appropriate and looks after the best interest of Andros Hutchins, a protected minor."
Looking after the interest of the minor, Matthew Hutchins, the deceased's husband, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the actor in February 2022, alleging that both he and the entire production team had acted recklessly, not respecting existing security protocols. security provided during filming, which would have caused the death of his wife.
However, unexpectedly, Hutchins announced in October that he had reached an agreement with those responsible for the film whereby he would become executive producer of the film, and that recordings would resume this year in the state of Montana -something which happened at the end of last April.
The judicial approval of this agreement comes a month after the New Mexico prosecutor's office formally dropped the involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin.
"We are delighted with the decision to dismiss the case against Alec Baldwin and encourage an appropriate investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident," Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, attorneys for the interpreter.
The well-known actor and the head of the Rust gun shop, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had previously been charged by the prosecution itself with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Halyna Hutchins.
Hutchins was killed when a revolver the actor was handling went off during the filming of the film in Santa Fe, after Gutierrez-Reed checked the revolver and assistant David Halls handed it over to him as a "cold weapon," or whatever it is. itself, without live ammunition.
Since the dramatic event, Baldwin has defended his innocence in his few public appearances, alleging that the responsibility for gun safety in Rust was assigned to Gutierrez-Reed and that he never pulled the trigger, instead the gun detonated because had some flaw. What's more, the actor sued his team members, arguing that they gave him a loaded firearm.
Following the incident, in which director Joel Souza was also wounded, authorities found test cartridges mixed with real bullets. The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office investigation has not yet been able to figure out how they got to the set of the filming.
