“Midnight Rider” director Randall Miller accomplished his probation this week — 11 years after a camerawoman was killed by a practice on his film set.
Miller was granted a court docket order this week that utterly worn out his involuntary manslaughter conviction from his file, in keeping with paperwork obtained by TheWrap.
The movement was made underneath the Georgia First Offender Act, which is out there for first-time criminals who full their probation with out violations.
“I am so grateful that this day has finally come. With this exoneration my record has been cleared,” Miller mentioned in a press release.
Miller accomplished 10 years of probation, throughout which period he was prohibited from filmmaking.
He was initially sentenced to 10 years in jail however was launched after spending only one yr behind bars.
He had pleaded responsible to prices of involuntary manslaughter and felony trespassing ensuing within the tragic loss of life of digital camera assistant Sarah Jones, who was simply 27, on the very first day of filming “Midnight Rider,” a film about singer Gregg Allman.
The film’s govt producer, Jay Sedrish, additionally pleaded responsible and bought 10 years on probation.
The pair have been deemed answerable for the horrifying Feb. 20, 2014 incident after they knowingly filmed on a railroad bridge in rural southeast Georgia with out permission from proprietor CSX Transportation.
The crew assumed no extra trains would cross that day and have been trying to movie actor William Damage, within the position of Allman, in a hospital mattress positioned on the tracks when a practice got here barreling down the bend.
Touring at 55 mph, the practice smashed right into a metal-framed mattress on the tracks, sending shrapnel flying as crew members scrambled for security and clung to the bridge’s steel railing excessive above the Altamaha River.
Jones was hit by the sting of the gas tank, sending her onto the practice’s path, the place she was run over. She died immediately.
Miller’s prosecution was the newest high-profile case in opposition to a filmmaker till Alec Baldwin, who was performing and serving as a producer, by accident shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust” in 2021.
Fees in opposition to Baldwin have been finally dropped. The film’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Hutchins’ loss of life impressed a California venture that might grant $1.5 million in tax incentives to filmmakers for hiring a security supervisor on set.
Miller is about to profit from the pilot program for this upcoming impartial function movie “Supercrip,” a few quadriplegic Uber driver who meets an egotistical film star.
