Alec Baldwin is still facing criminal and civil charges related to the shooting death of a crewmember.
Baldwin has tried to deflect blame every step of the way.
Now Baldwin made a jaw-dropping statement about his legal troubles.
Alec Baldwin is not yet out of the woods regarding the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the filming of the western Rust.
There’s a chance he could face criminal charges in New Mexico, although the far-left Santa Fe prosecutor seems sympathetic to Baldwin’s claim that he did not even fire the gun.
Now Baldwin made an appearance at a film festival in Boulder, Colorado where he essentially said people are only suing him because he has “deep pockets.”
Captured video showed Baldwin saying:
“What you have is a certain group of people, litigants and whatever, on whatever side, who their attitude is, ‘well, the people who likely seem negligent have no money and the people who have money are not negligent.’ So we have people that are suing people that they think are deep-pockets litigants. Why sue people if you’re not going to get money? That’s what you’re doing it for.”
Baldwin’s argument falls apart because he was a producer on the film.
He and the other producers are responsible for what happens on set.
One of the people suing Baldwin is Matthew Hutchins, widower of the slain cinematographer.
Hutchins said in an interview with NBC News:
“The idea that the person holding the gun and causing it to discharge is not responsible is absurd to me…[G]un safety was not the only problem on that set…There were a number of industry standards that were not practiced and there’s multiple responsible parties.”
In the film festival video, Baldwin seemingly threw armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed under the bus.
Baldwin said:
“All my career, without incident, I’ve relied on the safety experts there to declare the gun safe and never had a problem, and this happened…When someone, whose job is to ensure the safety of a weapon, hands someone else, whose job is to be the secondary layer of protection for safety of a weapon, and they hand you that weapon, you declare that that weapon is safe…That’s how I’ve done it my whole life because you’re not allowed as an actor to declare the weapon…I mean, the joke is, you don’t want the actors doing the safety check. They can’t even make coffee, they’re so stupid.”
But star actors George Clooney and Nicolas Cage refuted Baldwin’s claim and said they take an active role in making sure that weapons are safe for use.
One bit of good news for Baldwin is that the DA appears to be on his side.
Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies sat for a Vanity Fair interview and said:
“I didn’t know too much about guns, certainly not about 1850s-era revolvers. So when I first heard that, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy’…You can pull the hammer back without actually pulling the trigger and without actually locking it…So you pull it back partway, it doesn’t lock, and then if you let it go, the firing pin can hit the primer of the bullet.”
She might be buying the dubious claim that Baldwin did not even pull the trigger.
Either way, Baldwin’s legal troubles are not behind him yet.