Actor Alec Baldwin sued New Mexico prosecutors and sheriff’s office officials on Thursday alleging a “malicious” prosecution against him for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western movie “Rust,” Reuters reports.
The action against special prosecutor Kari Morrissey and others is among at least a dozen civil lawsuits filed over Hutchins’ death, which shocked Hollywood and sparked calls for an overhaul of firearms safety on movie sets.
The lawsuit, filed in a Santa Fe court, followed the dramatic dismissal of Baldwin’s case during his July manslaughter trial in the New Mexico capital.
A judge ruled the special prosecutor and sheriff’s office deliberately withheld evidence from Baldwin on the source of a live round that killed Hutchins.
For the best part of three years, New Mexico officials pursued Baldwin for “political” and “personal” goals in a “conspiracy” to bring him to trial, Baldwin’s attorneys say in the complaint, which seeks financial damages via a jury trial.
“Defendants must now be held accountable for their malicious and unlawful pursuit of Baldwin,” they wrote in the complaint.
Actions ranged from special prosecutor Andrea Reeb’s comment that the case could benefit her political career as a Republican state representative to Morrissey presenting “false and incomplete” testimony to win a grand jury indictment, they said.
Morrissey said prosecutors had long known the actor would file a retaliatory civil lawsuit.
