‘Rust’ armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed gets max sentence of 18 months in prison

“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison for her role in the 2021 killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

A New Mexico jury took two hours to find the 26-year-old weapons handler guilty of involuntary manslaughter on March 6. Santa Fe judge Mary Sommer sided with prosecutors who asked for the maximum sentence.

Prosecutors said Gutierrez-Reed called the jurors “idiots” and “retards” in recorded jailhouse conversations. She’s spent the past month in a county jail near Santa Fe.

Prosecutors called the defendant’s jailhouse phone comments a “complete and total failure to accept responsibility” for Hutchins’ death and asked the court not to show leniency.

Gutierrez-Reed also expressed her wishes that actor and “Rust” producer Alec Baldwin, who fired the shot that killed Hutchins, be locked up. The 66-year-old star’s trial begins in July.

The film’s assistant director testified in February that Gutierrez-Reed handed Baldwin a pistol, and the actor said he was assured it was “cold.” A bullet fired from that gun during rehearsal went into Hutchins’ chest and also wounded director Joel Souza. The gun was allegedly loaded with five dummy rounds and a bullet.

In addition to believing he was holding a harmless firearm, Baldwin claims he retracted the F.lli Pietta long Colt 45 revolver’s hammer, but didn’t pull its trigger. A firearms report submitted to prosecutors shed doubt on that assertion. His trial comes before Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, who oversaw Gutierrez-Reed’s case.

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