US actor Alec Baldwin has been indicted by a grand jury over the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a film set in New Mexico two years ago.
The 65-year-old will face a charge of involuntary manslaughter over the death of Halyna Hutchins, who died while filming Rust on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer of the movie, was pointing a gun at Ms Hutchins during a rehearsal in October 2021 when the weapon went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired.
Defence lawyers for Baldwin, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said the actor would fight the charge.
In a statement they said: “We look forward to our day in court.”
The indictment accuses Baldwin of negligent use of a firearm, while he also faces an alternate charge of involuntary manslaughter “without due caution or circumspection”.
An involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin over Ms Hutchins’s death had been formally dismissed in April.
But New Mexico-based special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis said they were seeking to re-charge Baldwin in October after “additional facts” about the shooting had come to light.
A report based on new analysis of the gun used by Baldwin and markings it left on a spent cartridge concluded that the trigger had to have been pulled or depressed.
The indictment was signed by Ms Morrissey and dated to Friday.
A civil lawsuit was also brought against Baldwin by crew members of the Rust movie, and his subsequent motion to have it dismissed was denied by a US judge in August.
The lawsuit claimed Baldwin and the production company behind the film caused “intentional emotional distress” and “physical trauma” to crew members as a result of negligence and “recklessness”.
The trial of the movie’s armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case, is scheduled to begin on February 21st.
