Law&Crime Sidebar - Alec Baldwin’s Arrest History and Brushes with the Law Leading Up to Deadly ‘Rust’ Shooting

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin goes to trial next week on charges of involuntary manslaughter, after a gun he was holding on the set of the film “Rust” fired a live bullet, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021. But this is not the first time Baldwin has dealt with law enforcement and the court system. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down six times Baldwin made headlines in the legal world.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Actor Alec Baldwin will be in a New Mexico courthouse next week, sitting as the defendant in an involuntary manslaughter case. This, after the gun he was holding while practicing a scene on the film set for the movie Rust went off. But this isn't the first time Alec Baldwin has seen the inside of a courtroom. No, we're going to break down some of his prior run-ins with the law and legal issues all ahead of this high-profile trial. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Alec Baldwin, we have been talking about him a lot

here on sidebar. And we will, of course, continue to talk about him a lot more as his manslaughter trial is set to begin on July 9th out in New Mexico. He's accused of shooting to death. Cinematographer Helena Hutchins on the Rust movie set back in October of 2021 in what was a horribly tragic accident. We just did a massive sidebar on everything you need to know about this case from the evidence to the arguments, what we can expect, the backstory. I encourage everybody is interested to go check it out. But quick, summation here about the case. So Baldwin, he was on the set, on the movie Rust. This was inside of a church. It was during a rehearsal when a gun he was holding went off. And the bullet hit the director

Joel Susan in the shoulder. He was injured but survived. But unfortunately, the bullet also hit Helena Hutchins in the chest and she died. This was a weapon, by the way, that was not supposed to contain any live rounds. The armor, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was already convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to the maximum of 18 months in prison for her role in the shooting. Baldwin has claimed that he didn't pull the trigger. Baldwin's lawyers have tried multiple times to get the case thrown out, but each time the judge has ruled that it must go on, and jury selection is expected to start next week.

Again, we plan to cover that trial extensively for you here on Sidebar. But while Alec Baldwin has certainly been in the spotlight since the 90s in movies and TV shows and even on Broadway, he has also made headlines. for several other legal battles and legal issues, and that is what we want to talk about. Baldwin, he is no stranger to the court system. So we're going to dive into some of his prior run-ins with the law. Let's go all the way back to 1995.

So Alec Baldwin and his then-wife, actress Kim Basinger, they brought home their newborn daughter, Ireland, from the hospital. And a photographer was camped out in front of the Baldwin home. This is out in California. Well, Baldwin reportedly approached the car of this photographer. photographer and sprayed shaving cream on the windows. There was a tussle, and the famed photographer Alan Zanger, a lot of people know him in the industry, claimed that Baldwin punched him and broke his nose. Baldwin said he'd only slapped the camera out of Zanger's hands. Alec Baldwin at the time

released a statement saying, quote, anyone with a shred of human decency would understand that there are times in your life when you want your privacy respected, whether you are a public figure or not. I do believe that bringing your wife and three-day-old baby home from the hospital is one of those occasions. That Mr. Zanger felt it was appropriate to videotape my home and my family for his own profit is unacceptable to me. I asked him repeatedly to stop filming us and he refused each request. I dispute his contention that I broke his nose or caused any other facial damage. So the actor was brought up on misdemeanor battery charges, but he was later acquitted. And he and Zanger then both took this to the civil arena. They filed civil claims against

each other. Baldwin filed a suit for invasion of privacy, negligence and distress. Zanger sued for assault, battery, emotional distress, and loss of income. The jury in that case found that both of them were negligent, but they didn't award Alec Baldwin damages. No, they just lowered the recovery amount for Zanger. So it netted him $4,500 in damages. And that was the end of that case. But moving forward, let's go back to Kim Basinger. So she filed for divorce from Alec Baldwin in 2001, and the two spent the next several months fighting over custody of their only child. Eventually, they agreed on a 50-50 custody agreement after spending a reported $3 million

on legal proceedings. And this dispute and this ongoing battle led Alec Baldwin to show his support for equal rights for fathers dealing with custody issues. In fact, he wrote a book titled A Promise to Ourselves, A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce. And he told ABC News as Diane Sawyer, quote, I don't care if the judges and the lawyers die of heart attacks in the process of getting their job done. They are corrupt, inefficient, lazy, stupid. They're the most god-awful people. The judges are like pit bosses in Vegas casinos.

Their job is to make sure everybody stays at the table and keeps gambling. Now, things were relatively quiet over the next few years. Well, there was in 2011 when Alec Baldwin was reportedly kicked off an American Airlines flight for not turning his phone off before takeoff. He said he was plying words with friends. He later issued an apology. Anyway, let's go to 2012. So this time, Baldwin and his current wife, Alaria,

they were coming out of Manhattan's Marriage License Bureau. And Marcus Santos, a photographer for the New York Daily News, says that Alec Baldwin shoved him and another photographer and even punched him. While representative for Baldwin refuted this account telling People magazine, quote, as Alec and his fiance were leaving City Hall, a civilian walking in front of Alec positioned themselves to obstruct the view of a photographer aggressively trying to shoot the couple. The photographer was clearly frustrated, pushed past the bystander, and assaulted Alec with his camera. There were no punches thrown, and any subsequent physical contact was simply

Alec protecting himself. Well, a short time later, Baldwin was accused of getting into an altercation with another photographer, this time outside of his Manhattan apartment, allegedly telling him to shut up, leave his neighborhood, and calling him a little girl. And we'll get more into the paparazzi and police a little bit later, but now we have to talk about something else. We have to talk about this very, very bizarre case in Alec Baldwin's legal history, where Alec Baldwin was the victim.

41-year-old Genevieve Saburin, a Canadian actress, was accused of stalking him. So the two met during a movie shoot back in 2000, and in 2010, Baldwin says he took Suburin out to dinner to give her career advice as a favor to a friend. That friend, Scarface producer Martin Bergman, seemed to suggest that Baldwin was cheating on his wife with Suburin. Baldwin has always denied that he was ever intimate with Suburin, but she says that this dream date did end with a sexual encounter and a bunch of promises from Alec Baldwin. The two reportedly emailed back and forth for two years, although Suburin says the emails are proof of relationship. Baldwin says he was just being nice in replying.

Baldwin claimed that Suburin flew into a rage when she learned that he was engaged to Alaria and insisted that she marry him instead. So Saboran would barrage Baldwin with text messages and late-night voicemails. And she reportedly showed up at Baldwin's New York City home numerous times and came to public events that he was attending. Valeria eventually called police when Suburin showed up outside their apartment. So she was criminally charged and in 2013 the case went before a New York judge. Baldwin ended up taking the stand. He described a nightmarish ordeal with this obsessed stalker. In fact, he became emotional when he described this one in.

incident that was shortly after he became engaged to Alaria. Quote, I got home the day of getting engaged to my wife. The defendant pulled up to my house in a car. It was a rainy day. My wife and I were sitting in the living room. She started to get out of the car and held up my hand to say, wait. My wife was worried and I was worried this very thing would happen. I told my wife not to come to the door.

I didn't know if she had a gun or a weapon. And I called the police. And during these court proceedings, Suburin reportedly interrupted by screaming at Baldwin that he was a liar, even reportedly saying, why is he crying? And she also apparently yelled insults at Alaria. Well, in the end, a judge found Suburin guilty of several misdemeanors, stalking, harassment, attempted aggravated harassment. She was also convicted of violating an order of protection that was put in place back in 2012

by sending Alaria threatening messages on Twitter, and the judge sentenced suburrent to 210 days in jail. Wow. But now let's go back to Alec Baldwin's run-in with photographers because it didn't end back then. No. Over the next couple of years, there were more reports of Baldwin clashing with photographers out in New York.

He allegedly pinned one paparzzo against a car in 2013, but when police got there, both men decided to not move forward with charges. Also, in 2013, Baldwin apologized. after calling a photographer, a homophobic slur. Baldwin would write on Twitter after the incident that, quote, I apologize and will retire it from my vocabulary. In 2014, a New York City police officer stopped and arrested Alec Baldwin

for riding his bicycle the wrong way down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The officer said he asked Baldwin for his ID, but Baldwin reportedly didn't hand it over. He was hit with two summonses. He was given two summonses, one for biking the wrong way, another for disorderly conduct. Baldwin tweeted about the incident saying, Officer Moreno, badge number 23388, arrested me and handcuffed me for going the wrong way on Fifth Avenue. Meanwhile, photographers outside my home once again terrified my daughter and nearly hit her with a camera.

The police did nothing. New York City is a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign. So in the end, here, Baldwin was granted a conditional pardon. The charges were eventually dropped. And in a very interesting twist, the judge actually told Baldwin to be a good boy from now on. Well, I don't know if that lasted because then we go to November 2018, where Baldwin was arrested for allegedly punching a man after dispute over a parking space. An NYPD spokesperson said that at the time that Baldwin was charged with assault and harassment. the alleged victim said he was hit by the actor in the face,

had to be transported to Lenox Hill Hospital. Then we go to January 2019, Baldwin ended up pleading guilty to harassment. He was ordered to pay a $120 fine and take anger management classes. Months later, the victim filed a lawsuit for assault against Alec Baldwin, who countersued with a defamation lawsuit claiming that, you know what, he actually didn't hit the man. He just pushed him. By January 2022, both men agreed to resolve the matter to settle it.

and the terms of that agreement were confidential. Which brings us, of course, to 2021, the shooting on the Rust film set. Alec Baldwin, who is now 66 years old, will face off against New Mexico prosecutors in his quest to prove he shouldn't be held criminally responsible for the death of Helena Hutchins. And as I keep saying, we will, of course, be following this trial very closely for you here on Sidebar, bringing you all the biggest updates from the courtroom. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us.

As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. podcasts or Spotify.