Alec Baldwin could face charges over film set shooting, says New Mexico prosecutor

Alec Baldwin could be charged over the fatal on-set shooting of a crew member on his film Rust, according to a letter from a New Mexico prosecutor.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot dead on the set of the movie last October.

Santa Fe District Attorney District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies wrote to the state’s financial board asking for funding to prosecute the case saying she was “ready” to file charges against four people.

She did not confirm what the charges might be but in the letter said she was looking at “all the homicide statutes and any gun statutes under New Mexico criminal code’”.

She added: “One of the possible defendants is well known movie actor Alec Baldwin.”

Carmack-Altwies asked for $635,000 to prosecute the case, saying she needed the money to go up against well-paid attorneys.

The state agreed to award her office $317,000 to appoint a special prosecutor to take the case forward.

Baldwin - who welcomed his seventh child with wife Hilaria last week - has always said he did not pull the trigger.

He has previously said the on-set stunt handlers and prop managers should have ensured the gun was ‘cold’ and did not have any live bullets in it.

“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger, no”, he said in an interview about the shooting.

The film’s armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who Baldwin says was in charge of ensuring the safety of the props, has always denied culpability despite being blamed by Hutchins’ family for the tragedy.

She was named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit launched by Hutchins’ widower.