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SCHOHARIE — A dismissed juror, opening statements and a failed motion seeking a mistrial.
Monday was a busy first day in the trial against Nauman Hussain, the 33-year-old operator of Prestige Limousine & Chauffeur Service, the Wilton-based company that rented the super-stretched 2001 Ford Excursion SUV to a group of 17 friends friends from the Amsterdam area to attend a birthday celebration in Cooperstown on Oct. 6, 2018, that would soon crash after the passengers boarded, killing 20.
Hussain faces 20 counts each of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for his alleged role in the crash that killed the passengers, the vehicle’s driver and two bystanders in what remains the worst automobile wreck the country has seen in more than a decade.
Dozens filled the third-floor courtroom to hear opening statements Monday in the trial that nearly never happened, including family members of those killed, as well as Hussain’s brother and finance. Hussain was set to take a plea deal last year for the criminally negligent homicide counts that would have seen him serve community service and probation but the deal was rejected at the last minute.
Prosecutors focused their opening statements on Hussain’s alleged failures to follow state vehicle registration and inspection laws for commercial vehicles that would have subjected the vehicle to rigorous inspections that could have prevented the crash.
Fred Rench, a special prosecutor appointed to assist Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery, said Hussain was “willful, intentional and knowing” in his actions that included ignoring multiple warnings that the vehicle involved in the crash was not properly registered with the state’s Department of Transportation, and that the vehicle’s brakes were in dire need of repair in the lead up to the crash.
“Mr. Hussain was made aware of his personal responsibility again and again and again in the months leading up to the crash,” Rench said.
The first day of the trial got off to a rocky start, when State Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch, who is presiding over the case, excused one of the 12 jurors that will decide Hussain’s fate for unknown reasons following a weeklong juror-selection process that saw nearly 200 individuals dismissed.
One of the four alternates selected last week was appointed to the position.
“This is why we have alternates,” Lynch said.
Lee Kindlon, a lawyer for Hussain, sought to shift the blame for the crash onto the state’s DOT, who he said failed to take the vehicle off the road despite having the authority to do so, as well as a Mavis Discount Tire shop in Saratoga Springs that allegedly failed to repair the brakes of the limo — which was stretched 144 inches and weighed 7 tons at the time of the crash.
The repair shop also placed a DMV inspection sticker on the limo, despite not having the authority to do so. DMV inspections only apply to standard automobiles, not commercial vehicles that carry 10 or more passengers. Mavis faces a number of civil lawsuits for its alleged role in the crash.
Kindlon said that his client could not be blamed for the crash, and that prosecutors were seeking to convict Hussain in order to secure justice for the victims in the wake of the crash that continues to be felt throughout Schoharie and the Amsterdam area, where many of the victims lived, as well as the whole region.
“Pretending just a single individual was responsible for the death of so many is not justice,” Kindlon said.
At one point during the proceedings, Kindlon asked for a mistrial after he discovered that one of the prosecution’s witnesses, Lawrence Macera, the former owner of Royal Limousine Service in Troy who paid to have the crash vehicle stretched, had pleaded guilty to a felony for stealing $54,000 in retirement savings from a railroad company he worked for.
Kindlon said that prosecutors never notified him of the infraction — which was discovered via a Google search — as required under the law and asked for the mistrial, or for Macera’s testimony to be stricken from the record.
Mallery said that she was unaware of the incident, and that her team ran all prosecution witnesses through a state database, but did not have access to a federal database that would have revealed the crime. The error, she said, was not intentional.
“I gather you did not do a Google search?” Lynch asked.
Kindlon’s motions were both denied.
He said following the court proceedings that the fact prosecutors never disclosed the conviction was “a pretty big misstep.”
“That’s now an open question. What else don’t I know?” Kindlon said. “But we’ll just have to figure that out going forward.”
The crash has garnered national attention and has led to new regulations for the limousine industry on both the state and federal levels. But questions remain about whether the state did enough to take the troubled vehicle — which had a history of failed inspections — off the road in the lead up to the crash.
A report issued by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board determined that the “probable cause” of the crash was the “egregious disregard for safety” on the part of Prestige, but concluded that the state’s DOT and DMV should have had better oversight of the vehicle.
Rench, during his opening statements, said that Hussain was notified repeatedly by DOT inspector Chad Smith that the vehicle was not properly registered, but did nothing to amend the issue. Smith twice placed “out-of-service” stickers on the vehicle after it failed a pair of on-the-spot inspections in the lead up to the crash.
Smith was being questioned by prosecutors when the proceedings were adjourned for the day. The questioning will continue Tuesday.
Rench described Hussain as a shady operator who ran multiple limousine companies that were not properly registered with the state’s Department of Transportation, used a series of fake names when conducting business and, on multiple occasions, posed as his father, Shahad Hussain, the owner of Prestige Limousine who was in his native Pakistan at the time of the crash and has never been charged in connection to the incident.
On a separate occasion, the vehicle was subject of a traffic stop and the vehicle’s driver, Scott Lisinicchia — who was the driver at the time of the crash — was cited for not having the proper certification to drive the vehicle, a ticket that was delivered in front of Hussain himself, according to Rench.
Still, Hussain put the vehicle back on the road in the bid to make a profit, said Rench, describing the act as irresponsible.
“Mr. Hussain was made aware of his personal responsibility again and again and again in the months leading up to the crash,” Rench said.
Kindlon said Hussain was tasked with running his father’s business operations and relied on experts to assist him in following state regulations.
At fault, Kindlon said, are the state’s DOT, who had the authority to take the vehicle off the road but failed to act, and the Mavis tire shop, who assured Hussain they had repaired the vehicle’s brakes and the authority to inspect the vehicle.
The tire shop, Kindlon said, lied and told Hussain that the vehicle’s brakes were repaired, when in reality the company did not install the necessary parts and instead returned them for a full refund.
“The accident was caused by the fraud and failure of Mavis to fix the brakes and the incompetence of New York state to uncover the fraud,” he said.
Following Monday’s proceedings, Kindlon said he plans to focus on Mavis, saying that if the brakes were repaired like the repair shop promised, the crash would never have happened.
“If the brakes worked as Mavis said they worked, these people would still be alive,” he said. “Everything else being the same, if the brakes were fixed as Mavis had promised none of us would be here.”
Contact reporter Chad Arnold at: [email protected] or by calling 518-395-3120.
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