Warrant issued for Alec Baldwin’s Apple iPhone in ‘Rust’ shooting probe

Police obtained a search warrant on Thursday for actor Alec Baldwin’s Apple iPhone in the investigation of October’s fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of his Western movie “Rust” according to court documents.
iPhone passcode lock screen
Andrew Hay for Reuters:

The warrant authorized investigators to seize Baldwin’s Apple iPhone in order to examine text messages, email correspondence, social network communications, browser activity and other information stored on the device, according to the documents.
A sheriff’s detective, Alexandria Hancock, said in her affidavit that she sought a court order requiring Baldwin to turn over his phone after she had requested it from the actor and his attorney on a voluntary basis and “was instructed to acquire a warrant.”
Suspects, victims and witnesses “often make and/or receive telephone calls and/or messages before, during and/or after the commission of crime(s). Such information, if it exists, may be material and relevant to this investigation,” the affidavit stated… “There were several emails and text messages sent and received regarding the movie production ‘Rust’ in the course of (police) interviews” following the Oct. 21 shooting.

MacDailyNews Take: So, instead of first disabling Face ID and setting a long 34-character custom alphanumeric code before handing over the iPhone, it seems Baldwin / his lawyers wanted to hand over the iPhone data:
Deadline:

Baldwin’s attorneys say that they wanted a formal warrant for their client’s phone to protect his privacy.
“We are confident that the evidence will show that Mr. Baldwin is not responsible civilly or criminally for what occurred on October 21, and he continues to cooperate with authorities,” Aaron Dyer said Thursday after the warrant for Baldwin’s phone was approved.
“We proactively requested that the authorities obtain a warrant so that we could take steps to protect Mr. Baldwin’s family and personal information that is clearly unrelated to the investigation,” the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP lawyer added. “A phone contains a person’s entire life, and personal information needs to be protected. While they evaluate the phone information, we hope that the authorities continue to focus on how the live rounds got on the set in the first place.”

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