Alec Baldwin has been indicted by a grand jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the “Rust” shooting case, less than a year after prosecutors dropped similar charges against the actor.
The document lists two counts of involuntary manslaughter. The main count claims the actor negligently handled the prop gun. An alternative count says Baldwin caused Hutchins’s death “with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.”
Special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We look forward to our day in court,” Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, Baldwin’s lawyers, said in a statement.
The actor and “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were initially charged with involuntary manslaughter last year in a criminal complaint that accused Baldwin of flagrantly ignoring safety protocols on the set of the film, which he was starring in and producing. The original charges against Baldwin carried up to a five-year prison sentence, but they were dropped a few months later as prosecutors said they needed more time to investigate.
It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted them to seek a grand jury indictment against the actor or what evidence the grand jury looked at to make its decision. But forensic testing on the prop gun last year suggested to investigators that Baldwin had to have pulled the gun’s trigger, contrary to his claim that it went off by itself.