"Rust" armorer takes plea deal in criminal case

Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer in the “Rust” movie, has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of bringing a gun into a bar in Santa Fe and to serve a sentence of 18 months probation.

Gutierrez Reed is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 shooting death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

If approved by a judge, the plea deal would resolve allegations that Gutierrez Reed took a firearm into the Matador bar on Oct. 1, 2021, about three weeks before Hutchins was killed.

Gutierrez Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles, notified the court Tuesday that his client had accepted a plea deal and asked 1st Judicial District Judge Glenn Ellington to schedule a plea hearing. No hearing date has been set.

Prosecutors have alleged in court records that Gutierrez Reed made a video describing how she smuggled the gun into the bar between her buttocks.

“Upon successfully circumventing the security at the bar she went into a restroom and made a selfie video stating ‘they checked my purse, but the didn’t check my butt cheeks! Wah, wah, wah,’” prosecutors wrote in a motion filed in April.

“At the same time that she was speaking she held up a nickel-plated semi-automatic pistol in front of the camera,” special prosecutor Kari Morrissey and former special prosecutor Jason Lewis wrote.

Gutierrez Reed was convicted by a Santa Fe jury in March of involuntary manslaughter for negligently loading a live bullet into a gun actor Alec Baldwin was holding when it discharged, fatally shooting Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021.

Baldwin was tried in July for involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death, but a Santa Fe judge tossed the case in mid-trial, ruling that prosecutors had withheld evidence from Baldwin’s legal team.

Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys are now asking 1st Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to toss the armorer’s manslaughter conviction, or order a new trial, arguing that prosecutors also withheld evidence in her case.

No definitive evidence has emerged about how live ammunition turned up on the Western movie set although prosecutors alleged that Gutierrez Reed was responsible.

Bowles has argued in court records that prosecutors charged Gutierrez Reed in the Matador bar case as a way of pressuring her to take responsibility for bringing live ammunition onto the movie set.

Carrying a firearm into a licensed liquor establishment is a fourth-degree felony under New Mexico law.

If a judge accepts the plea deal, Gutierrez Reed would receive a sentence of 18 months of supervised probation that could be transferred to Arizona under an interstate compact. Arizona is the home of Gutierrez Reed’s stepfather, veteran movie armorer Thell Reed.

The agreement also prohibits her from possessing firearms or living in a residence where firearms are present.