Alec Baldwin trial on hold as judge considers defense request to dismiss case over disputed ammo

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Alec Baldwin ’s involuntary manslaughter trial was put on hold Friday while the judge considers a defense motion to dismiss the case over disputed ammunition.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home for the day after a hearing on the issue that was supposed to precede resumption of the trial raised more questions and called for further testimony.

The defense filed its motion over what it says is ammunition evidence the prosecution hid from them that may be related to the shooting death of cinematographer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021.

The issue came up Thursday during defense questioning of sheriff’s crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. Baldwin lawyer Alex Spiro suggested with his questions that Poppell and other authorities had been overly cozy with the film’s firearms supplier Seth Kenney and had insufficiently investigated whether he was responsible for the fatal ammunition reaching the set.

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey established in her questioning that the source of the ammunition was Troy Teske, a friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father with motivations to redirect the blame, and despite similarities the bullets were not the same size as the live rounds found on the “Rust” set, including the one that killed Hutchins.

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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.

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