Alec Baldwin, Muhammad Syed among cases resolved in 2024

The trial of actor Alec Baldwin in a 2021 shooting death on the “Rust” movie set and the convictions of Muhammad Atif Syed in a string of killings in Albuquerque’s Muslim community were among the cases tried in a New Mexico courtroom in 2024.

Alec Baldwin

Santa Fe became the focus of worldwide media attention in July when actor Alec Baldwin, 66, stood trial in a 2021 shooting death on the “Rust” movie set near Santa Fe.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer threw out the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin mid-trial after finding that prosecutors withheld evidence from the actor’s defense team. The case will not be refiled.

The trial took a dramatic turn on the fifth day of testimony when Baldwin’s attorneys alleged prosecutors failed to provide the defense team with bullets an Arizona man gave the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer of the Western, was holding a gun during a rehearsal on the set, fatally shooting cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.

The movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, 27, was convicted on March 6 of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death following a closely watched trial in the same courtroom as Baldwin’s trial.

Gutierrez Reed, who loaded the live round into the gun Baldwin was holding, was sentenced in April to 18 months in prison.

Muhammad Atif Syed

The criminal case of a man convicted in the shooting deaths of three Muslim men in 2022 was resolved last year when Syed, 53, was sentenced to life in prison, but questions remain unanswered about his motives.

The killings drew national media attention and stoked fears in Albuquerque’s Muslim community that a serial killer was stalking Muslim men.

The sentence handed down by 2nd Judicial District Judge Britt Baca requires Syed to serve at least 30 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Syed was convicted by a jury in March of first-degree murder in the July 26, 2022, shooting death of 41-year-old Aftab Hussein. He later pleaded no contest to two counts of second-degree murder in the fatal shootings of Mohammud Afzaal Hussain, 27, and Naeem Hussain, 25.

But Syed maintained his innocence at his sentencing hearing in November and asked that he and his family be allowed to return to his native Afghanistan.

At his sentencing hearing, relatives of the victims decried that Syed accepted no responsibility and offered no explanation for the killings.

Ryan Martinez

Ryan Martinez accepted a plea deal in October acknowledging he opened fire at an emotionally charged Juan de Oñate protest in Española, injuring a Native American activist in 2023.

The last-minute plea deal on the eve of his trial in Tierra Amarilla requires Martinez, 24, to serve four years in prison for the shooting that injured Jacob Johns of Spokane, Washington. Martinez pleaded no contest to aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The event was intended to celebrate a decision by Rio Arriba County officials to postpone plans to relocate a controversial statue of the conquistador to a pedestal outside a county building.

Witnesses said Martinez attempted to approach the pedestal when he was blocked by several people. Video recordings show that Martinez jumped over a low wall, pulled a handgun and fired a shot that struck Johns before fleeing in a car. The incident was photographed by Albuquerque Journal photographer Eddie Moore.

Jeannine Jaramillo

Jeannine Jaramillo was sentenced last month to back-to-back life sentences for causing a head-on crash that killed a Santa Fe police officer and a retired firefighter.

Jurors on Dec. 12 found Jaramillo, 49, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for leading police on a high-speed chase against traffic on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe, resulting in the head-on collision.

Killed in the crash were 43-year-old Santa Fe police officer Robert Duran and 62-year-old Frank Lovato, a retired firefighter from Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The sentence handed down by 1st Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer requires Jaramillo to serve at least 60 years in prison before she becomes eligible for parole.

Marc Ward

A judge sentenced Marc Ward to life in prison after a jury found him guilty in March of using a truck to strike and kill a 61-year-old security guard in the parking lot of Calvary Church in 2022.

The 2nd Judicial District Court jury convicted Ward, 36, of first-degree murder in the killing of Daniel Bourne, who was fatally struck as he approached Ward’s truck.

Skip Heitzig, Calvary’s senior pastor, and about two dozen other church members filled the gallery throughout the seven-day trial. Calvary Church, one of New Mexico’s largest churches, has a 25-acre campus on Osuna NE, just west of Jefferson, where the killing occurred on Sept. 23, 2022.

Lee Cuellar

A judge sentenced Lee Cuellar to life in prison after a jury quickly found him guilty of first-degree murder for strangling his wife in 2021.

Jurors deliberated three hours before rejecting Cuellar’s argument that he killed 26-year-old Rosalejandra “Alex” Cisneros because he believed she was a “demon” who intended to hurt Cuellar and his family.

Prosecutors told jurors that Cuellar strangled his wife because he felt threatened by her successful modeling career and widening circle of friends.

The life sentence handed down by 2nd Judicial District Judge Britt Baca requires him to serve at least 30 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.