Judge responds to Trump’s requests to delay sentencing in Manhattan criminal case
Judge Juan Merchan has delayed former President Trump’s sentencing in New York v. Trump until September, following requests from the presumptive Republican nominee to do so, and no opposition from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump was found guilty in an unprecedented criminal trial last month on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, following a six-week trial stemming from Bragg’s investigation.
BRAGG DOES ‘NOT OPPOSE’ TRUMP REQUEST TO DELAY SENTENCING; AWAITS JUDGE MERCHAN’S APPROVAL
Trump on Monday moved to overturn his criminal conviction in the Manhattan case after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity for official acts committed while in office. He also requested to delay his sentencing, which was set for July 11 — just days before the Republican National Convention where he is set to be formally nominated the 2024 GOP presidential nominee.
Bragg, on Tuesday morning, said Trump’s request to toss the verdict was without merit, but did not oppose the request to delay sentencing.
Merchan on Tuesday afternoon delayed Trump’s sentencing date to September 18 at 10:00 a.m.
TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION
“The July 11, 2024, sentencing date is therefore vacated. The Court’s decision will be rendered off-calendar on September 6, 2024, and the matter is adjourned to September 18, 2024, at 10:00 AM for the imposition of sentence, if such is still necessary, or other proceedings,” Merchan wrote in a letter to Trump attorneys and New York prosecutors.
TRUMP MOVES TO OVERTURN MANHATTAN CASE AFTER SCOTUS IMMUNITY DECISION
Merchan’s decision comes after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on presidential immunity — a question that stemmed from charges brought against Trump in a separate, federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith related to the events of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach and any alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
But Trump’s attorneys swiftly acted in seeking to apply the new standard to the Manhattan case, too.
First Democrat member of Congress demands Biden step aside as presidential nominee
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first elected Democrat to call on President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, saying the president “failed” to defend his record and reassure voters that he’s the man for the job during last week’s debate.
Acknowledging Biden’s accomplishments for his party, Doggett said in a Tuesday statement that “many Americans have indicated dissatisfaction with their choices in this election.”
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies,” Doggett said.
‘IT’S TIME TO RIP THE BAND-AID OFF’: FORMER LONGTIME DEMOCRAT LAWMAKER URGES BIDEN TO STEP ASIDE FOR HARRIS
“Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang,” he continued. “Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory – too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what was not turned around in the debate, can be turned around now.”
“President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2020. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024,” he added.
Amid his call for Biden to withdraw, Doggett reflected on the “painful” decision made by former President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election to the White House in 1968.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same,” the Texas lawmaker said. “While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional.”
Doggett said the president “has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process.”
“My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved. Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,” he concluded.
Doggett’s remarks come less than a week after Biden’s disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
BIDEN TRIES TO FLIP THE SCRIPT ON NEGATIVE NARRATIVE COMING OUT OF DISASTROUS DEBATE WITH TRUMP
Speaking with a raspy voice and delivering rambling answers, Biden struggled during many portions of the debate. Several political analysts noted, however, that the president sharpened his answers as the debate progressed.
Biden’s uneven and, at times, halting performance grabbed the vast majority of headlines from the debate and sparked a new round of calls from political pundits, publications and some Democrats for the president to step aside as the party’s standard-bearer. Top Biden allies have pushed back against such talk as they defended the president and targeted Trump for “lying” throughout the debate.
Biden, on the day after his debate performance, aimed to address Democratic Party panic.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden, at 81 the oldest president in the nation’s history, told cheering supporters at a Friday afternoon rally in the crucial battleground state of North Carolina.
“Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said. “But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.”
In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Jack Pandol said, “The cowards in the Democratic Caucus have spent every day after the debate in witness protection, too afraid to say what they’re all thinking.”
“Americans remember House Democrats were complicit in covering up and gaslighting the public about the president’s condition, and voters are primed to punish them in November,” Pandol added.
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Though it isn’t immediately clear who Democrats would rally around as the party’s nominee should Biden step aside, Rep. James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, said Tuesday that he “will support” Vice President Kamala Harris if Biden leaves the race.
‘Disc-shaped craft’ hovers over concert venue, employees say: ‘It knew it was being watched’
A dozen employees said they watched a “large, disc-shaped craft” hover above a Colorado concert venue and then vanish.
“What’s even crazier is that as soon as we all started noticing it and stopped what we were doing to pay attention to it, the craft tipped at an angle and slowly started moving belly-first to the east,” an employee reported to the National UFO Reporting Center about the June 5 sighting at the Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Morrison.
“Then it started fading away until it was invisible. It didn’t shoot off into the distance. It simply dissolved into the ether. We all watched it vanish.”
The “silent” hovering object was long – about the size of a “three-story office building” – with three levels of windows and lights, according to the National UFO Reporting Center.
ALIEN VIDEO SHOWS AT LEAST 2 ‘BEINGS’ USING ‘CLOAKING’ DEVICE: ‘I’M OPENING IT UP TO PEER REVIEW’
“One of our coworkers suddenly said to us, ‘Hey, what is that over there? It looks like a spaceship,’” the anonymous reporting employee wrote.
ALIENS ‘TRY TO STAVE OFF PESKY HUMANS’ IN WILD VIDEO: ‘WHAT ARE THEY DOING HERE?’
“We all turned to look in the direction he was pointing and sure enough, there was a UFO hovering about half a mile to a mile north of Red Rocks.”
They all turned their attention to the strange object in the sky, and it suddenly “fade(d) into nothing as soon as it knew it was being watched,” according to the National UFO Reporting Center post.
That’s when it “simply dissolved into the ether.”
“A dozen of us saw it. We all kept asking each other, ‘Are you seeing this too?’ It was a resounding, ‘Yes,’ from everyone in the group,” the worker wrote in the post.
ALIEN VIDEO SHOWS AT LEAST 2 ‘BEINGS’ USING ‘CLOAKING’ DEVICE: ‘I’M OPENING IT UP TO PEER REVIEW’
“This was not a plane. It wasn’t a satellite, a drone, or anything like that. There was no mistaking what this was.”
The way it appeared to “simply dissolve into the ether” is similar to a potential alien encounter reported last April in Las Vegas, when “beings” seemingly vanished.
Scott Roder, a veteran crime scene reconstruction analyst, broke down the Las Vegas witnesses’ video and outlined two “smokey filters” that didn’t match the background.
He theorized that “the beings” used some sort of “cloaking mechanism” to “shield” themselves from the curious family and, later, responding police officers.
UNDERWATER UFOS DISPLAY CAPABILITY THAT ‘JEOPARDIZE MARITIME SECURITY’, EX-NAVY OFFICER SAYS
WATCH: CRIME SCENE RECREATION ANALYST BREAKS DOWN REPORTED ALIEN SIGHTING
In one second of real time, there are 30 frames that show a “head… with smoke around it,” which Roder called “some sort of cloaking device,” moving into the top right corner of the video and peering over the fence.
“I applied the same principles that I would apply to any kind of homicide investigation,” said Roder, who testified in cases like Oscar Pistorious’ murder trial.
“At this particular time, with what we’ve seen here, is proof of a couple of things. That these entities… are real. They’re there. This is not fake. This is not a fraud.”
There are believers, skeptics and people on the fence about extraterrestrial life, but there’s a growing interest in UFOs, or UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena), as they’re referred to today.
Roder worked with Jim Quirk, a reporter who runs the Extraterrestrial Reality podcast and who shared videos and images with Fox News Digital, to recreate the scene in the Las Vegas backyard on April 30, 2023.
Roder wants to open it up to “peer review.”
“Bring it on,” he said.
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“I want to open this up. Everything that we’ve done. I’m opening it up for peer review… I’m willing to hear what professionals in my field have to say about this and open it up. And if I’m wrong, you know, I’ll admit it,” Roder said, although he’s certain he’s right.
These two items, these two beings, are in the real world environment with the Kenmore family. That’s a fact,” Roder said. “Now the question is, Who are they? Where are they from and what do they want? That’s where the conversation goes.”
Biden’s kingmaker declares support for another Democrat if president has to bow out
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., declared his support Tuesday for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy in the event President Biden agreed to step down from his re-election bid, while adding he hoped the ticket remained Biden-Harris.
Clyburn, a longtime ally of Biden, told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday that the entire party would need to “bolster” its support for Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee if it had to happen. He also blasted those who might want to “work around” her and choose someone else at the top of the ticket considering her low polling.
“We should do everything we can to bolster her, whether it’s in second place or the top of the ticket,” Clyburn said.
BIDEN SENIOR ADVISER CLASHES WITH CNN ANCHOR OVER PRESIDENT’S DEBATE PERFORMANCE
Mitchell prompted the discussion by mentioning ongoing calls among voters, Democratic officials and members of the liberal media to replace Biden as the party’s presidential nominee following his widely criticized debate performance last week.
She specifically asked what he thought about Harris replacing Biden at the top of the ticket, though she mentioned that some were wary of her due to her low polling numbers.
“Congressman, how would you feel if there is a decision for him to step down? If he decides that, and he has to decide that, or if the party pressures him to do that? How would you feel if they worked around and tried to go around Kamala Harris because of her lack of high poll numbers and popularity broadly based? Do you think it is hers to have if it’s not his?” she asked.
“I will support her, if he were to step aside,” Clyburn said. “But I’m going to support her going forward and sometime in the future. I want this ticket to continue to be Biden-Harris. And then we will see what happens after the next election.”
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He then expressed discomfort at the idea that anyone would try to go around her to seek a different candidate.
“No. This party should not, in any way, do anything to work around Ms. Harris,” he declared.
Despite talking about Biden’s potential replacement, earlier in the conversation, the Democratic Party lawmaker told Mitchell that party voters have indicated to him that they are “dug in” on Biden for the nominee following the debate.
“I can tell you what I found in Wisconsin, I did about 10 events in three cities … and the Democratic voters, what I call the grassrooters, they are dug in on this,” he said, adding, “Joe Biden may decide otherwise. But I think the people that I have been around the last three days are dug in in their support for Joe Biden.“
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Migrant accused of raping teenager released on $500 bail despite pleas from feds
An illegal immigrant was indicted this week for the brutal rape and murder of Rachel Morin in what an attorney for the victim’s family called a “crucial step.”
A Maryland grand jury voted to formally charge Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, with two counts of murder, two counts of rape and one count each of sex offense and kidnapping for the savage 2023 attack on the mother of five.
“The indictment marks a crucial step in pursuing justice for Rachel Morin and her family,” attorney Randolph Rice said in a statement. “This is a significant step toward achieving justice for Rachel Morin and holding the defendant accountable for this heinous crime.”
RACHEL MORIN’S MOM RIPS BIDEN’S INDIFFERENCE TO BORDER CRISIS: HE’S IN AN ‘IVORY TOWER’
Martinez Hernandez was arrested at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last month after a nationwide manhunt for the El Salvador native, who is being held without bond.
Officials said Martinez Hernandez, who has suspected gang ties, fled his home country in February 2023 after a warrant was issued for the murder of a woman there.
He made three unsuccessful attempts to enter the United States before making it across the border on Feb. 13, 2023 near El Paso, Texas, authorities said.
RACHEL MORIN’S ACCUSED KILLER APPEARS IN COURT, DENIED BAIL
According to prosecutors and police, he allegedly assaulted a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a Los Angeles home invasion in March before he targeted Morin on the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, Maryland, on Aug. 5.
He’s accused of dragging her off the path, bludgeoning her so viciously that she was left with more than 10 gashes on her head then strangling her to death.
Her body, which was found in a drainage tunnel, was blanketed in bruises.
RACHEL MORIN MURDER: MARYLAND POLICE TIE CRIME SCENE DNA TO LOS ANGELES ASSAULT, HOME INVASION
Her mother, Patty Morin, who lives in Harford County, said she agonizes over her daughter’s final moments.
“I’m sure she knew she wasn’t going to live,” she previously told Fox News Digital. “I’m sure she was thinking of her children and thinking about all the things she’s going to lose, and this is going to be the end of her life. She must have felt so helpless.”
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Martinez Hernandez is due back in Harford County District Court July 22. His court-appointed attorney, Marcus Jenkins, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
New details on execution of two police officers in horrific ambush
WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO
A Connecticut man fatally shot two police officers in a horrific 2022 ambush while in the grip of a spiral fueled by personal failures and drug and alcohol abuse, according to a report released by the state’s Inspector General.
Nicholas Brutcher shot Bristol police Sgt. Dustin DeMonte and Officer Alex Hamzy dead in the driveway of his home after luring them there by placing a 911 call.
He was angered over a traffic stop that occurred hours earlier and a subsequent dressing down at the hands of his mother over the police encounter.
A third officer who fatally shot Brutcher at the scene was also struck in the hail of bullets.
BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT POLICE AMBUSH SUSPECT WAS FACEBOOK FRIENDS WITH OFFICER HE’S ACCUSED OF KILLING
Inspector General Robert Devlin’s report – required in deadly force cases – found that Brutcher was plagued by personal problems at the time of the incident, including the impregnation of his ex-wife by a former friend.
“It must be emphasized that Brutcher is the murderer here,” the report stated. “It would be wrong to place any blame for the attack on the traffic stop officers or others in Nicholas Brutcher’s life.”
Brutcher and his brother were pulled over by police after an Oct. 12, 2022, bar fight. The killer engaged in a war of words with officers at the scene before he was let go.
Some time later, he called 911 to report that his sibling was acting aggressively and that he needed help.
CONNECTICUT POLICE OFFICERS’ FUNERAL DRAWS THOUSANDS TO STADIUM FOR HEARTWRENCHING CEREMONY
As DeMonte, Hamzy, and Officer Alec Iurato approached his door, Brutcher opened fire with an AR-15 while crouching in some nearby bushes.
As his stunned parents, Joseph and Catrina Brutcher, looked on, he stood over his victims and continued to fire.
“How proud are you of me? How proud?” Brutcher said as he pulled the trigger, according to the report. Hamzy was hit a total of 24 times.
“I don’t think I ever screamed like that before in my life,” Catrina Brutcher told investigators. “My son walked over to one of the officers that was down and just shot him point blank in his head. I was just screaming at him to stop.”
2 BRISTOL POLICE OFFICERS KILLED, ONE SEVERELY INJURED IN PRE-PLANNED AMBUSH
Although Iurato was shot in the leg, he was able to take cover behind a car and take out Brutcher with a single shot.
Brutcher’s friends and relatives told investigators that he had become suicidal in the months leading up to the killings.
On the night of the incident, police pulled Brutcher and his brother over after they brawled at a bar. Police called their mother to pick them up, and she berated him at the scene.
“I was embarrassed and I told him that,” Catrina Brutcher said. “I said, `Nick you’re embarrassing your family; you’re embarrassing our name.’”
An analysis of Brutcher’s phone suggested that a former partner thought she was pregnant, and that he believed he too was to soon become a father.
He had also repeatedly installed and uninstalled Grindr, a dating app for the LGBTQ community, and appeared to want to “keep this aspect of his life secret.”
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“The analysis of Nicholas Brutcher’s phone, interviews of family/friends, and a comprehensive review of all collected evidence provided insight into the stressors of Nicholas Brutcher’s life that likely contributed to the ambush attack on officers,” the report said.
Americans warned to stop shopping on fast-fashion site that’s booming in popularity
You know the saying that when a store’s prices are unbeatable, they’re likely unbelievable?
That’s the same warning Arkansas’ attorney general is giving to Americans who shop on Chinese-based Temu, alleging “it’s a theft business.”
“The threat from China is not new, and it is real,” AG Jim Griffin said on “Varney & Co.” Tuesday. “Temu is not an online marketplace like Amazon or Walmart. It’s a data theft business that sells goods as a means to an end. So it is common for an online marketplace like Amazon, like Walmart, to collect certain consumer data as part of the normal course of business. I think we all know that that’s not what’s going on here.”
Last week, Griffin took legal action against the Chinese fast-fashion retailer Temu over what he alleges are the company’s “deceptive tactics” that are harming consumers.
AMAZON LAUNCHING SHEIN, TEMU COMPETITOR WITH DIRECT SHIPPING FROM CHINA
Arkansas’ lawsuit targets Temu’s parent company, PDD Holdings. Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group, has described PDD Holdings as a “monster in Chinese e-commerce.”
Griffin alleged that the company is using spyware and malware on its app to get more than just Americans’ consumer data.
“What Temu is doing is selling goods at a rock bottom price, not to make a profit off of those, but as a way to get into your phone, your device, and to collect your data,” Griffin said. “Not just traditional consumer data, but using malware spyware to have complete access to your information. And [taking it] one step further, their code is written in such a way to evade detection.”
These actions violate “several” of Arkansas’ state laws, according to the attorney general.
“We’ve got a violation of the Arkansas Personal Information Protection Act, and we have a violation of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act,” he noted.
“All of this against the backdrop of who owns the company, who operates the company, which are former Chinese communist officials,” Griffin continued. “So there’s a lot to unpack here that goes beyond a traditional online marketplace.”
A spokesperson for Temu told FOX Business the company was “surprised and disappointed” by the lawsuit. The company accused the attorney general of filing the lawsuit “without any independent fact-finding.”
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“The allegations in the lawsuit are based on misinformation circulated online, primarily from a short-seller, and are totally unfounded. We categorically deny the allegations and will vigorously defend ourselves,” the Temu spokesperson said.
Temu rose to household fame after spending nearly $3 billion on multiple Super Bowl ads in February, which cost roughly $7 million each – the going rate for 30-second ads during this year’s big game.
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Dem mayor needs to stop this shucking-and-jiving act and start living in reality
I have questions for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is proposing a reparations task force: where are the reparations for all Blacks killed in shootings in my neighborhood and elsewhere in the city?
Where are the reparations for the city’s failure to produce adequate protection for its residents? Where are the reparations for the city’s failure to provide adequate schooling to inspire kids toward the American Dream instead of nihilistic violence? And where are the reparations for the city’s woke legal system that puts the interest of violent criminals above the interests of the city’s hardworking citizens?
Most of all, why has he consistently ignored the efforts of Chicagoans like myself to better our neighborhoods through tried and true American principles — his administration refuses to support the massive Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center that I’m building on the South Side.
CHICAGO MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON ANNOUNCES REPARATIONS TASK FORCE, BLASTS ‘SYSTEMIC RACISM’ IN JUNETEENTH SPEECH
These questions entered my mind as I read the recent news that Mayor Johnson committed $500,000 toward a “Reparations Task Force to develop a Black Reparations Agenda.” His executive order states that the nation and city “perpetuated, condoned, profited and benefited” from slavery and Jim Crow policies from 1877 to 1963. He blamed these polices for racial disparities in “life expectancy, unemployment, homeownership rates, home value, incarceration, and more.”
What he conveniently left out were all the liberal policies that have devastated my neighborhood since the 1960s. People laughed recently when Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said there were more intact Black families under Jim Crow. But he was absolutely correct.
Will these same people laugh when I say my South Side neighborhood was better off in the 1960s? Look no further than former first lady Michelle Obama for evidence. Her first home was the Parkway Gardens, a massive living community next to my church. Back then, it was a working class community. Today, it is the projects.
IF DEMOCRATS SAY THEY STAND WITH MY COMMUNITY, WHY ARE SO MANY STILL FAILING TO LEARN HOW TO READ?
These liberal policies disincentivized marriage, steered us toward dependency on the government instead of upward mobility, and undermined the virtues of personal responsibility and agency. To our shame, we allowed these policies to make us a shadow of ourselves.
This reparations argument is not about slavery or segregation. Those past evils are being weaponized to cover up the fact that liberalism was so devastating to our communities. I’ve lived this reality for more than twenty years. I’ve delivered the eulogy at the funerals of young men and women gunned down in the prime of their lives. I have had to provide academic support and tutoring services for the kids that go to the nearby school where so few students are performing at grade level. And I’ve personally witnessed violence by criminals let out of prison early in the name of racial justice and criminal justice reform.
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It’s almost like the last 60 years did not exist for Brandon Johnson. But they did for us.
The best decision I ever made was to hop off this train of liberalism that was fast going nowhere — I did that, so I could live in reality. The reality is that I know the American principles work.
People in the mayor’s office call these principles white supremacist values, but that just gaslighting. I know these principles work because they are universal and belong to no color. They worked for me, a true country boy from Indiana. And they work for the youths on these tough streets.
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That is why I spent the last 12 years working to build a community center — so it could be a place for these American principles to take hold and allow my people to flourish.
The last thing we need is more liberal gaslighting from Mayor Johnson that will only extend the misery of Black people. We need to stop this shucking-and-jiving act for liberals and begin to live in reality. It is only then that we Blacks will begin to make true and everlasting progress.
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‘Rust’ armorer serving sentence makes ‘bombshell’ accusation before Alec Baldwin trial
Hannah Gutierrez Reed is requesting immediate release from prison as the “Rust” armorer prepares to seek a new trial.
Gutierrez Reed’s lawyer accused the prosecution of withholding “bombshell exculpatory evidence,” which would have led to a “fundamentally different trial and likely a different outcome,” according to court documents filed June 27 and obtained by Fox News Digital.
The armorer’s team claimed the state did not disclose a report that found “unexplained toolmarks on critical surfaces of the trigger and sear” of the Pietta 45 Colt revolver replica used on the Western film set. Gutierrez Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles, pointed out that the marks were not “the result of the damage incurred during the FBI’s impact testing.” The marks also “do not appear to be original manufacturing marks or use and abuse toolmarks based on [their] irregular orientation,” according to the report.
The state “buried this information” and it was “never disclosed” to Gutierrez Reed or her legal team, Bowles wrote.
ALEC BALDWIN’S ‘RUST’ ARMORER SENTENCED TO MAXIMUM TIME IN FATAL ON-SET SHOOTING
Additionally, Bowles claimed the state then “called the expert at trial and sat idly by as he perjured himself during cross-examination.”
The report showing the “unexplained” toolmarks would likely have “bolstered” Gutierrez Reed’s defense, according to the court documents.
“Ms. Gutierrez Reed’s principal defense theory was that no one had committed a crime and that this was a tragic accident, and if there was any negligence, it was on the part of producers, as found by OSHA,” court docs read. “This defense would have been imminently bolstered by a legally unforeseeable intervening cause – such as a firearm malfunction – that caused Ms. Hutchins’ death.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to special prosecutors in the case for comment.
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Gutierrez Reed was responsible for the firearms on the Western film set where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on Oct. 21, 2021. Hutchins had been preparing a close-up shot when a gun Alec Baldwin was holding discharged.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sentenced Gutierrez Reed to 18 months in prison after she was convicted in March.
“I find that what you did constitutes a serious, violent offense,” Sommer said after handing down the sentence. “It was committed in a physically violent manner. A fatal gunshot done with your recklessness in the face of knowledge that your acts were reasonably likely to result in serious harm.”
“You were the armorer, the one that’s to be between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Mrs. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother. Please take her.”
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Gutierrez Reed’s trial, which began Feb. 21, saw testimony from weapons experts, FBI and Santa Fe County authorities, and crew members who witnessed the fatal shooting. The prosecution largely focused on Gutierrez Reed’s behavior as an armorer, alleging she didn’t do her job correctly.
“Hannah Gutierrez knew that Baldwin was loose. She knew it,” special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said during closing arguments. “She didn’t do anything about it, even though it was her job. It was her job. It is her job to say to an A-list actor, if, in fact, that’s what you want to call him, ‘Hey, you can’t behave that way with those firearms.’ That is her job. That is what they pay her for. That is the job that she applied for. That is the job that she accepted.”
Gutierrez Reed’s legal team had told the jury that the prosecution hadn’t presented enough evidence to convict the armorer of involuntary manslaughter.
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