Gun supervisor for 'Rust' movie gets 18 months in prison for fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin on set - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
A movie weapons supervisor was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film "Rust," during a hearing Monday in which tearful family members and friends gave testimonials that included calls for justice and a punishment that would instill greater accountability for safety on film sets.
Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March by a jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and has been held for more than a month at a county jail on the outskirts of Santa Fe. Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of "Rust," where it was expressly prohibited, and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.
Gutierrez-Reed was unsuccessful in her plea for a lesser sentencing, telling the judge she was not the monster that people have made her out to be and that she had tried to do her best on the set despite not having "proper time, resources and staffing."
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for "Rust," was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He is scheduled for trial in July at a courthouse in Santa Fe.
The sentence against Gutierrez-Reed was delivered by New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, who is overseeing proceedings against Baldwin. The judge said anything less than the maximum sentence would not be appropriate given that Gutierrez-Reed's recklessness amounted to a serious violent offense.
"You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone," the judge told Gutierrez-Reed. "You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother."
Gutierrez-Reed teared up as Hutchins' agent, Craig Mizrahi, spoke about the cinematographer's creativity and described her as a rising star in Hollywood. He said it was a chain of events that led to Hutchins' death and that if the armorer had been doing her job, that chain would have been broken.
Friends and family recalled Hutchins as courageous, tenacious and compassionate — a "bright beam of light" who could have gone on to accomplish great things within the film industry.
"I really feel that this was due to negligence," Steven Metz, a close friend, testified. "This case needs to set a precedent for all the other actors, and cinematographers and every one on set whose lives are at risk when we have negligence in the hands of an armorer, a supposed armorer."
Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred read a statement by Hutchins' mother, Olga Solovey, who said her life had been split in two and that time didn't heal, rather it only prolonged her pain and suffering. A video of a tearful Solovey, who lives in Ukraine, also was played for the court.
"It's the hardest thing to lose a child. There's no words to describe," Solovey said in her native language.
The Ukrainian relatives of Hutchins are seeking damages in her death from Baldwin in connection with the shooting. Allred said after Monday's hearing that the family supports his criminal prosecution.
Defense attorneys for Gutierrez-Reed requested leniency in sentencing — including a possible conditional discharge that would avoid further jail time and leave an adjudication of guilt off her record if certain conditions are met.
Gutierrez-Reed was acquitted at trial of allegations she tampered with evidence in the "Rust" investigation. She also has pleaded not guilty to a separate felony charge that she allegedly carried a gun into a bar in Santa Fe where firearms are prohibited.
Defense attorneys have highlighted Gutierrez-Reed's relatively young age of 26 "and the devastating effect a felony will have on her life going forward," arguing that she will forever be affected negatively by intense publicity associated with her prosecution in parallel with an A-list actor.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey urged the judge to impose the maximum prison sentence and designate Gutierrez-Reed as a "serious violent offender" to limit her eligibility for a sentence reduction later, describing the defendant's behavior on the set of "Rust" as exceptionally reckless.
Morrissey told the judge Monday that she reviewed nearly 200 phone calls that Gutierrez-Reed had made from jail over the last month. She said she was hoping there would be a moment when the defendant would take responsibility for what happened or express genuine remorse.
"That moment has never come," Morrissey said. "Ms. Gutierrez continues to refuse to accept responsibility for her role in the death of Halyna Hutchins."
The judge indicated that summary transcripts of Gutierrez-Reed's telephone conversations from jail weighed in the sentencing.
"Hannah says that people have accidents and people die, it's an unfortunate part of life but it doesn't mean she should be in jail," Marlowe Sommer said. "The word 'remorse' — a deep regret coming from a sense of guilt for past wrongs — that's not you."
Defense attorneys argued Monday that Gutierrez-Reed was remorseful and had breakdowns over Hutchins' death. They also pointed to systemic problems that led to the shooting.
"Rust" assistant director and safety coordinator Dave Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and completed a sentence of six months unsupervised probation. "Rust" props master Sarah Zachry, who shared some responsibilities over firearms on the set, signed an agreement with prosecutors to avoid prosecution in return with her cooperation.
The pending firearms charge against Gutierrez-Reed stems from an incident at a Santa Fe bar, days before she was hired to work as the armorer on "Rust." Prosecutors say investigations into the fatal shooting led to the discovery of a selfie video in which Gutierrez-Reed filmed herself carrying a firearm into the bar, while defense attorneys allege vindictive prosecution.
Former New Mexico football player convicted of robbing a postal carrier - Associated Press
A former University of New Mexico football player has been convicted of robbing a U.S. postal carrier and is facing up to 10 years in prison, authorities said Monday.
Prosecutors said 28-year-old Rayshawn Boyce, of Albuquerque, also was found guilty by a federal jury of stealing a key belonging to the U.S. Postal Service and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
A sentencing date for Boyce hasn't been scheduled yet.
Boyce and a co-defendant pulled a mail carrier out of his truck in January 2022 in the International District and demanded his keys at gunpoint before a neighbor who witnessed the altercation intervened, prosecutors said.
Boyce fled the scene and authorities said they later executed a search warrant at his apartment and seized two semi-automatic guns and a revolver, leading to his arrest.
Boyce pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
After transferring to New Mexico from a California junior college, Boyce played in eight games for the Lobos in 2017 as a linebacker.
He was suspended from the team in 2018 after being accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Boyce pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years of probation.
Lengthy to-do list before NMFA begins approving $125 million in new housing loans - By Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The head of the state’s finance authority tasked with doling out a windfall of housing loans said the authority is on track to OK loans in the fall — so long as what she called the “timeline gods” are merciful.
In the legislative session that wrapped up in February, lawmakers approved $125 million for the New Mexico Finance Authority to spend on workforce housing development and affordable housing infrastructure. Workforce housing is generally aimed at those who exceed income thresholds that would qualify them for subsidies.
It’s a big windfall for the relatively new Opportunity Enterprise Revolving Fund created in 2023 for commercial development and then amended legislatively to include housing. Under the new law this year, the fund will be used to address the statewide housing crisis. The state lacks at least 32,000 affordable housing units, according toa recent study.
Citing the pressing need, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, when she signed the legislation in late February, challenged the authority to approve loans by the fall.
Marquita Russel, CEO of the authority, told Source New Mexico on Friday that the authority has much to do before it can get that money out the door, and staff will be “threading the needle” to get it done by then.
House Bill 195, which goes into effect May 15, requires the authority to add new board members with expertise in housing and also create new rules governing the loan program. State rulemaking requires 45-day public comment periods, and the new board won’t be able to approve the initiation of draft rules until they convene after the law goes into effect.
The rules will be subject to multiple hearings, and the board will have to incorporate public comments once they are submitted, Russel said.
“It’s a lengthy process,” she said. “It requires a lot of transparency and public hearing, and then notices, so it can’t happen quickly.”
But when the application process opens, she hopes by late summer, private developers will have access to low interest loans to help build roads, sewers and other infrastructure to affordable housing projects or to build new housing for people, like many police officers and teachers, who can’t afford to live in the communities where they work.
The fund as it exists now provides commercial loans at 60% of the Wall Street Journal prime interest rate on the day it is issued. That rate Friday was 8.5%.
Russel said she’s not sure whether the funds will go primarily for affordable housing infrastructure or workforce housing, or whether it will go to nonprofits or private developers. But she added that she believes there is a high demand for workforce housing and few places for developers to go for financing.
Lawmakers this session also approved $50 million for the Mortgage Finance Authority’s Housing Trust Fund, which is geared for affordable housing programs and development.
Taken together, the $175 million — plus $20 million to address homelessness and other individual housing projects — is the biggest housing investment in the Legislature’s history, aimed to boost new development of low- and middle-income housing.
Another bill passed this session, Senate Bill 216, adds nonprofit housing developers to a list of possible recipients of low interest loans for the NMFA’s Public Project Revolving Fund. That fund was established in 1992 for local government projects, but amended to let nonprofit housing agencies apply.
However, Russel said no nonprofits who apply will be authorized to receive that money until the next legislative session, when lawmakers sign an annual bill approving recipients.
But Russel said she hopes that fund, when it’s finally available, will end up becoming the go-to source of capital for housing nonprofits, leaving the $125 million fund for for-profit developers, “because there isn’t another place for those,” she said.
Many New Mexico voters lack choices in legislative races - By Marjorie Childress, New Mexico In Depth
As the 2024 primary election gets underway, it bears pointing out the slim opportunities New Mexicans actually have to cast a meaningful vote for the people who represent them in the Legislature.
First, a big chunk of legislative districts have so many Democrats or so many Republicans that there isn’t a serious race for those seats in the November general election.
There will be a few hot races – where both parties will have hard fought primaries and then a hard-fought general election. But there aren’t many.
Here are some numbers to brew on:
In the Senate, there are just four districts out of 42 where there’s a fairly even split between Republicans and Democrats – districts 12, 21, 29 and 40. All four are in the state’s metropolitan region around Albuquerque. Republicans have safe seats in 11 districts. Democrats have 27 safe seats.
By “safe,” I mean the voter share of one party is more than 40%. Even if the incumbent has a challenger in the general election, the incumbent has a strong likelihood of winning even if the race is lively. Many incumbents have no challenger at all.
In the House, by the same metrics, there are just 13 seats out of 70 where neither party has more than 40% of the voter share. I count 16 safe Republican seats in the House, and 41 safe Democratic seats.
36 incumbents across the two chambers have no challenger at all.
Second, in some but not all of those “safe” districts where there’s not much of a general election, if any, primary election voters will determine who gets to serve in the Legislature. In most of those races, in effect, a minority of voters will choose the state lawmaker. That’s because New Mexico excludes voters not registered with either major party from participating in the primary. Independent voters make up about a quarter of the voting public.
There are other issues regarding representation as well – namely, how the once-a-decade redistricting process skews in favor of one group over the other. It’s true that more New Mexicans are registered as Democrats than Republicans, so Democrats’ majority hold on the Legislature reflects that demographic reality.
But there’s a difference between exercising one’s majority and inordinate domination of the field. Consider these numbers: Democrats safely control 59% of House seats, and 64% of Senate seats – based on the criteria that more than 40% of a district is composed of registered Democrats. But when it comes to registered voters in the state, just 43% are signed up as Democrats.
THE PRIMARY RACES I'M WATCHING
Because there are so many seats where there won’t be a serious general election race, the winners of a nice chunk of legislative seats will be determined in the primary election.
Some of these primary races will be hot, some won’t. At this stage I’m using an educated assessment from years of watching races, with a slight bit of guesswork, to pinpoint the races I think will be hot. At this stage, much of my take is based on how much money candidates have raised (rather than loaned themselves) and other indications of support from within their own party, plus my own knowledge of how particular incumbents have weathered past challenges.
This year, there are a handful of races with numerous people running for seats where the incumbent has retired – those should be interesting, but it’s unclear yet how hotly contested most will be.
There are a handful of races that have been pinpointed by some watchers as hot, but if they don’t have much of a campaign account – the first public reports were due on Monday – they’re not hot to me, yet. Here are the primaries I’m watching, at the moment, with particular interest.
HOUSE DISTRICT 16: Albuquerque area Democrat Yanira Gurrola, the progressive favorite, was appointed to fill the seat of then Rep. Moe Maestas after he was appointed to the Senate. Gurrola is being challenged by Marsella Duarte, who was briefly appointed to the same legislative seat by the Bernalillo County Commission before being replaced by a newly revamped commission the following month.
HOUSE DISTRICT 27: Albuquerque area Democratic incumbent Marian Matthews is being challenged by Greg Seeley, who appears to have backing from the progressive faction of the party.
HOUSE DISTRICT 70: Northern New Mexico Democratic incumbent Ambrose Castellano has a large campaign account. But his challenger, Anita Gonzales, has been publicly endorsed and heavily donated to by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and she has the backing of the progressive faction of the party as well.
SENATE DISTRICT 13: Albuquerque area Democratic incumbent Bill O’Neill is being challenged by a former Bernalillo County Commissioner, Debbie O’Malley, who is a progressive favorite. O’Malley has more than $60,000 in her account so far.
SENATE DISTRICT 15: Albuquerque area Democratic incumbent Daniel Ivey-Soto is facing Heather Berghmans. This will be an interesting race to watch – a significant progressive faction has loudly indicated they will attempt to get Ivey-Soto out, but sprinkled among his campaign donors are a handful of progressive lawmakers.
SENATE DISTRICT 26: An Albuquerque west-sider, Sen. Moe Maestas has had a long legislative tenure, but almost entirely in the House of Representatives. He was appointed to fill a Senate vacancy two years ago. He’s now running to win his first Senate election. His challenger, Julie Radoslovich, has raised $80,000.
SENATE DISTRICT 30: Former Democratic Sen. Clemente Sanchez was primaried by progressives in 2020, losing his seat. Rather than dole out his campaign account to help others get elected over the past four years, he held onto it and is using it now to return to the senate. He’s running for a redrawn district in western New Mexico that doesn’t have an incumbent. He’s going up against Angel Charley, a citizen of Laguna Pueblo and the Navajo Nation, who will likely have significant support from the progressive political faction of the party.
Oil and gas companies must pay more to drill on federal lands under new Biden administration rule — Matthew Daly, Associated Press
The Interior Department's rule raises royalty rates for oil drilling by more than one-third, to 16.67%, in accordance with the sweeping 2022 climate law approved by Congress. The previous rate of 12.5% paid by oil and gas companies for federal drilling rights had remained unchanged for a century. The federal rate was significantly lower than what many states and private landowners charge for drilling leases on state or private lands.
The new rule does not go so far as to prohibit new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, as many environmental groups have urged and President Joe Biden promised during the 2020 campaign. But officials said the proposal will lead to a more responsible leasing process that provides a better return to U.S. taxpayers and focuses oil and gas drilling in areas most likely to be developed, especially those with existing infrastructure and a high potential for oil and gas reserves.
The rule also will increase the minimum leasing bond paid by energy companies to $150,000, compared with the previous $10,000 established more than 60 years ago. The higher bonding requirement is intended to ensure that energy companies meet their obligations to clean up drilling sites after they are finished drilling or cap wells that are abandoned.
The plan codifies some provisions — including royalty hikes for at least 15 competitive lease sales — that have been enforced on an interim basis since passage of the climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, in August 2022. The rule also incorporates provisions in the 2021 infrastructure law and recommendations from an Interior Department report on oil and gas leasing issued in 2021. That report recommended an overhaul of the oil and gas program to limit areas available for energy development and raise costs for oil and gas companies to drill on public lands and waters.
"These are the most significant reforms to the federal oil and gas leasing program in decades, and they will cut wasteful speculation, increase returns for the public and protect taxpayers from being saddled with the costs of environmental cleanups," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Friday.
Along with efforts to clean up so-called orphaned, or abandoned, wells, "these reforms will help safeguard the health of our public lands and nearby communities for generations to come," Haaland said. The rule also will ease pressure to develop areas that contain sensitive wildlife habitat, cultural resources or recreation sites, she said.
The new royalty rate codified by the climate law is expected to remain in place until August 2032, after which it can be increased. The higher rate would increase costs for oil and gas companies by an estimated $1.8 billion in that period, according to the Interior Department.
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's top lobbying group, said it was reviewing the rule to ensure Biden's Democratic administration was encouraging "fair and consistent access to federal resources" used by oil and gas companies.
"As energy demand continues to grow, oil and natural gas development on federal lands will be foundational for maintaining energy security, powering our economy and supporting state and local conservation efforts," API vice president Holly Hopkins said in a statement. "Overly burdensome land management regulations will put this critical energy supply at risk."
Environmental groups hailed the rule change as a way to ensure accountability from energy companies that have long had cheap access to federal lands.
"For far too long, oil and gas companies have been profiting off of giveaways to drill on our public lands. This rule will finally curtail some of these wasteful handouts to the fossil fuel industry," said Josh Axelrod, senior policy advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Communities, conservationists and taxpayer advocates have been demanding many of these changes for decades, and it's great news that the Biden administration is acting on this today."
The Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group, faulted the administration for failing to address the climate crisis directly by phasing out drilling on public lands.
"Updating oil and gas rules for federal lands without setting a timeline for phaseout (of drilling) is climate denial, pure and simple,'' said Gladys Delgadillo, a climate campaigner for the Arizona-based group. "Public lands should be places for people to enjoy nature and wildlife to roam free, not hotspots for toxic pollution."
The change in bonding rates is a key element of the new rule, officials said. The previous rate of $10,000, established in 1960, was far too low to force companies to clean up old drilling sites and did not cover potential costs to reclaim a well, officials said. As a result, taxpayers frequently end up covering cleanup costs for abandoned or depleted wells if an operator refuses to do so or declares bankruptcy. Hundreds of thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells and abandoned coal and hardrock mines pose serious safety hazards, while causing ongoing environmental damage.
The Interior Department has made available more than $1 billion in the past two years from the infrastructure law to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells on public lands. The new rule aims to prevent that burden from falling on taxpayers in the future.
Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning, whose agency issued the new rule, said it "will help protect critical wildlife habitat, cultural resources and recreational values'' while ensuring a fair return for taxpayers. The bureau manages more than 245 million acres of public lands, mainly in the West.
Lawmakers were divided by party.
Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, called the rule an important step to rein in oil and gas companies.
"When Big Oil uses our public lands, it stands to reason they should be giving American taxpayers a fair return for the privilege," he said. "That's why Democrats worked so hard to pass reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act to return some balance to a leasing system that has favored polluters for far too long.''
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources panel, said the rule imposes unfair costs on energy companies that will result in less drilling, fewer jobs and more dependence on oil from the Middle East.
"As a candidate, Joe Biden recklessly threatened to end oil and natural gas production on federal lands," Barrasso said. "As president, he is doing all he can to make it economically impossible to produce energy on federal lands."