Seth Kenney, the supplier who provided prop guns to the movie “Rust,” sued Alec Baldwin and dozens of other individuals and companies tied to the ill-fated production, claiming his reputation has been destroyed in the wake of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ death.
In the lawsuit, which was filed directly by Kenney in New Mexico Oct. 22, the supplier says he has been unable to find work with other productions.
Among the 34 individuals and companies listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Baldwin; Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the convicted armorer for “Rust”; director Joel Souza; assistant director David Halls; and Hutchins’ widow, Matthew Hutchins.
In the lawsuit, Kenney accuses Baldwin of making false statements to the media deflecting culpability for Hutchins’ death and working with bad faith actors on YouTube and other online media platforms to scapegoat Kenney for the fatal incident, in which a gun supplied by Kenney’s company discharged a live round while Baldwin was holding it and rehearsing a scene, killing Hutchins and wounding Souza.
“Defendants, individually and collectively, in an effort to distance themselves from the ‘Rust’ criminal investigation and onslaught of negative publicity, conspired to paint Plaintiffs in a nation-wide false light scapegoat smear campaign,” the suit reads.
The criminal charges against Baldwin were thrown out due to withheld evidence, while Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 14 months in prison. Investigators never determined how live rounds became mixed with the blanks supplied for the “Rust” production.
Kenney additionally claims that Gutierrez-Reed’s supply of blanks “had been mixed with live .45 Colt rounds that she had been shooting in her off hours while working as an armorer on’‘The Old Way,’” an earlier film starring Nicolas Cage. Gutierrez-Reed filed her own lawsuit in 2022 accusing Kenney of introducing the live rounds, but it was later dropped.
In 2022, Kenney told investigators that he did not remember whether he had supplied the box of blanks found on the “Rust” set, saying it was “entirely possible” that he may have supplied it to Gutierrez-Reed for use on “The Old Way” and asserted that it was still Gutierrez-Reed’s responsibility to assume all rounds are live unless personally verified otherwise.
Two years later, Kenney testified in court that the “Old Way” rounds did not come from him but from Gutierrez Reed’s father, film armorer Thell Reed.
TheWrap has reached out to Baldwin’s representatives for comment. The actor still faces a civil suit filed by Hutchins’ mother and sister, for which he is scheduled to be deposed on Nov. 12.
Kenney’s lawsuit was first reported by Variety.
