New Mexico
Prosecutors say weapons expert in Baldwin case was hungover on set
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The weapons supervisor on the film set where Alec Baldwin shot and killed a cinematographer was drinking and smoking marijuana in the evenings during the filming of “Rust,” prosecutors are alleging, saying she was likely hungover when she loaded a live bullet into the revolver that the actor used.
They leveled the accusations Friday in response to a motion filed last month by Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys that seeks to dismiss her involuntary manslaughter charge. The prosecutors accused her of having a history of reckless conduct and argued that it would be in the public interest for her to “finally be held accountable.”
Jason Bowles, Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney, said Tuesday that the prosecution has mishandled the case.
“The case is so weak that they now have chosen to resort to character assassination claims about Hannah,” Bowles told The Associated Press. “The prosecution has abandoned the idea of doing justice and getting to the actual truth apparently.”
A preliminary hearing for Gutierrez-Reed is scheduled in August. A judge is expected to decide then if there’s probable cause for Gutierrez-Reed’s charge to move forward.
In the response, the prosecutors also noted that they expected to decide within the next 60 days whether to recharge Baldwin, depending on the results of an analysis of the gun and its broken sear. The items were sent to the state’s independent expert for further testing.
The involuntary manslaughter charge faced by Baldwin, who also was a producer on the film, was dismissed in April, with prosecutors citing new evidence and the need for more time to investigate.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on the New Mexico film set in October 2021 when it went off, killing her and wounding the film’s director, Joel Souza.
Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys had argued in their motion that the prosecution was “tainted by improper political motives” and that Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and the initial special prosecutor she appointed, Andrea Reeb, “both used the tragic film set accident that resulted in the death of Halyna Hutchins as an opportunity to advance their personal interests.”
The defense lawyers contend that the permanent damage done to the gun by FBI testing before the defense could examine it amounted to destruction of evidence and a violation of the court’s rules of discovery. They also argued that the “selective prosecution” of Gutierrez-Reed was a violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
New special prosecutors who were appointed after Reeb stepped down disputed those claims in their response, saying “nothing about this prosecution has or will be selective.”
The prosecutors also acknowledged the unanswered question of where the live rounds found on set came from, saying they were trying to find out and that the investigation was ongoing. They also suggested there was evidence to support the theory that Gutierrez-Reed herself may be responsible and if so, more charges may follow.
They offered no specifics in the filing as to what that evidence might be.
Arizona
U.S. administration argues against trial in case of family separations at Mexico border
PHOENIX (AP) — Despite President Joe Biden’s loathing of his predecessor’s practice of separating migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, his administration argued in federal court Tuesday that a lawsuit seeking money for five affected mothers and their children should be dismissed.
Justice Department attorney Phil MacWilliams told U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton the claims were improper and the case shouldn’t be tried. He argued that the Yuma, Arizona-based Border Patrol agents involved used their discretion to separate the families, not a policy aimed at deterring migrants arrivals.
Attorney Diana Reiter, representing the families, argued the case should go to trial because the separations were part of a bigger policy under then-President Donald Trump aimed at preventing migrants from arriving at the border. She noted that because the women were never prosecuted the separations were unnecessary.
Bolton will issue a decision in the coming weeks.
The U.S. government’s push to prevent a trial underscores the awkward position the Biden administration is now in as it grapples with its own problems managing migrant arrivals at the border.
The mothers and their children sued the U.S. government in 2019, seeking monetary compensation for the trauma they suffered the previous year when they were torn apart by the separation policy.
In 2021, the Biden administration participated quietly in settlement negotiations to end such lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who were forcibly separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy. But U.S. officials withdrew from such talks in December 2021 and said it would instead defend each case in court.
The negotiations in cases involving hundreds of plaintiffs were carried out for months until The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2019 that the government was considering paying about $450,000 to each person affected by the policy. The Associated Press later confirmed that figure was discussed.
About 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents in 2018 under Trump as his administration sought to stop an increase in people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, including migrants who showed up to seek asylum as the law allowed. Trump halted the family separation practice later that year amid widespread outrage.
Biden’s administration since reversed some of Trump’s actions designed to keep migrants from arriving at the border, including legally.
The American Immigration Council filed suit on behalf of the mothers and their children, who are also being represented by Reiter’s firm, Arnold & Porter, as well as the National Immigrant Justice Center, National Immigration Litigation Alliance, and Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin.
South Carolina
Judge extends election fundraising rights
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina legislative special interest caucuses can formally campaign, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a victory for a hardline conservative group of state representatives that want to push the Republican-controlled Legislature further to the right.
The order allows the South Carolina Freedom Caucus to fundraise and distribute election materials just like the House Republican, Democratic, Black and Women’s Caucuses already do. The fledgling conservative faction had argued that a state ethics law limiting those abilities only to caucuses organized by political party, race, ethnicity or gender violated its freedom of speech.
“By prohibiting special interest caucuses from engaging in election-related speech, making expenditures for that speech, and soliciting contributions for that speech, South Carolina’s law operated as ‘a ban on speech,’” Judge Cameron McGowan Currie wrote.
Ultraconservative elected officials in at least 11 statehouses have organized under the State Freedom Caucus Network banner in an attempt to gain influence by leveraging divisive social issues.
Those efforts are expected to get a boost in South Carolina after the decision. The South Carolina Freedom Caucus had said the statute favored the ruling parties and arbitrarily disempowered others. Special interest caucuses had previously only been able to solicit money for the cost of mail and conference attendance.
With the Tuesday ruling, state Rep. RJ May, the vice chairman of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, said “the establishment’s armor is cracking.”
“The career politicians in Columbia have created a system of the powerful, for the powerful, and by the powerful that benefits themselves and their cronies,” May said in a statement.
The judge also struck a prohibition on lobbyist contributions to legislative special interest caucuses. Gone is another requirement that the Clerk’s Office maintain records for at least four years with identifying information about donors and the amounts donated.
Republican State Rep. Micah Caskey, named in the lawsuit as a member of the committee that enforces those rules, said the judge “blast(ed) a hole in our state ethics laws.”
Because any two legislators can form their own special interest caucus, Caskey fears the ruling will open the door for state lawmakers to raise undisclosed funds in coordination with their campaigns.
“The dark money is going to come pouring into our state because these guys and the judge think it’s a good idea for any legislator to sidestep our campaign finance laws by creating a ‘special interest caucus,’” Caskey told The Associated Press in a text.
The lawsuit had backing from America First Legal, a legal group founded by Stephen Miller and other previous White House advisers to former President Donald Trump.
Massachusetts
GM of electrical company pleads guilty to fraud
BOSTON (AP) — The general manager of a Massachusetts-based electrical company has pleaded guilty to his role in a fake invoicing scheme that cheated the contractor that runs the Boston-area’s commuter rail system out of more than $4 million.
John Rafferty, 69, of Hale’s Location, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to federal prosecutors.
Rafferty was the general manager of LJ Electric, Inc., which completed work for Keolis Commuter Services — the company that has operated the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s commuter rail network since 2014.
Under the scheme, Rafferty spent millions of dollars between July 2014 and November 2021 on at least nine trucks, construction equipment including at least seven Bobcat machines, home building supplies and services, and a $54,000 camper, prosecutors said. The items were for his alleged accomplice — John Pigsley, a former assistant chief engineer for Keolis — as well as his family and friends, prosecutors said.
Rafferty, who was arrested in April, recovered the cost of the items by submitting fraudulent LJ Electric invoices to Keolis. As a result, Rafferty kept a percentage of the profit for himself. Prosecutors argued that the money could have helped with repairs for the beleaguered Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
Rafferty faces up to five years in prison at sentencing scheduled for Sept. 18.
Pigsley has pleaded not guilty and is due back in court in July.
