Alec Baldwin's fatal Rust armourer's no jail time plea is 'too little too late', expert

Alec Baldwin's armourer Hannah Gutierrez Reed's legal team are attempting to steer her clear of jail time after her guilty verdict.

The Rust crew member was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection to the death of Halyna Hutchins, handing Baldwin real bullets before the filmmaker was shot dead. Gutierrez Reed remains in custody until she's sentenced, she faces up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 (£3,900) fine, a date for sentencing has not yet been set.

Her lawyers say she qualifies for no jail time due to her "lack of a criminal history" and "personal character traits". They say her age is also a factor. The conviction of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 18 months.

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READ MORE: Rust movie gun expert 'having a tough time' behind bars after manslaughter conviction

"It's possible the judge grants [Gutierrez Reed] a conditional discharge, but I don’t think it’s likely," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Fox News Digital. "Gutierrez Reed still hasn't accepted any responsibility for her actions which caused someone's death."

He added: "She pushed her case to trial, and her lawyers have said they're going to appeal because of the jury instructions. At the time of the shooting, Gutierrez Reed was more concerned with her career being over than Hutchins' death. Add the drug use and obstruction of justice – I don't think she's a very sympathetic defendant. These letters are probably too little, too late to sway the judge," Rahmani added to the outlet.

It comes after news Gutierrez-Reed is having "a really difficult time" in the New Mexico detention centre where she is staying. Her family is said to be arranging a time to visit her - and her loved ones are said to be devastated by her guilty verdict, per TMZ.

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Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the western movie, was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on the movie set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off, tragically killing Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

During the gun expert's trial, her attorney blamed Baldwin for "going off-script" when he pointed the gun at the filmmaker and, therefore, Gutierrez-Reed could not have known it would be fired. He said: "It was not in the script for Mr. Baldwin to point the weapon. She didn't know that Mr. Baldwin was going to do what he did."

Baldwin's previous indictment was dropped after he claimed the gun was defective and that he did not pull the trigger. However, the gun was broken, so the prosecutors temporarily dropped it while they investigated it further. Ballistics experts were later able to reconstruct the gun and determined that the trigger would need to have been pulled for it to go off. The report from experts said: "This fatal incident was the consequence of the hammer being manually retracted to its fully rearward and cocked position followed, at some point, by the pull or rearward depression of the trigger."

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