SCHOHARIE – A judge on Wednesday denied a request by Nauman Hussain’s attorneys to have his ankle monitor removed as he awaits trial for the 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie that killed 20 people.
The decision by state Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch to deny Hussain’s request comes as the state inspector general is nearing completion of an investigation into the role that state oversight agencies played in the crash. Less than two weeks before Election Day, a report on the probe has yet to be released.
Hussain, 32, is facing 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter for allegedly failing to maintain the 2001 stretch Ford Excursion that crashed into the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Country Store and Cafe on Oct. 6, 2018 after its brakes failed coming down a steep hill. All 17 passengers and the driver died, along with two bystanders.
The families of the victims, who are anxiously awaiting the results of the inspector general’s probe, fiercely opposed the removal of Hussain’s ankle monitor.
Hussain Attorney Lee Kindlon of Albany told the Times Union he made the motion after the probation department recommended it come off. Kindlon said Lynch denied the motion even though no justification was given by Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery to have the bracelet monitor remain in place .
“We expect to begin to appeal the judge’s rulings in this case in short order,” Kindlon said.
Hussain struck a no-jail plea deal in 2021 with Mallery to plead guilty to 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide in exchange for serving five years of probation. But that deal was agreed to by the previous judge overseeing the case, Schoharie County Court Judge George Bartlett III, who has since retired.
When Lynch, a state supreme court justice for Albany County, was assigned to the case, he would not agree to the plea deal.
At an Aug. 31 court hearing in Schoharie, Lynch threatened to sentence Hussain to fours years in state prison – the maximum sentence under state guidelines for criminally negligent homicide – unless he withdrew his 2021 guilty plea. Lynch later set a May 1, 2023 trial date. Mallery declined comment on Wednesday.
Kevin Cushing, father of crash victim Patrick Cushing, said Wednesday the families had not been notified the hearing on the ankle monitor was taking place, but they were glad Lynch did not allow Hussain to remove the device, saying the request was “self-serving and tone deaf” given the circumstances of the tragedy.
“We’re less than sympathetic to any inconvenience or discomfort the monitor may be causing Hussain,” Cushing said.
Meanwhile, Cushing said the families of the other victims were looking forward to learning any new details about the case that might be included in the findings of the IG investigation into the crash. The IG’s office has promised to issue a report on its probe, which was examining the role that state agencies such as the Department of Transportation and the Department of Motor Vehicles played in the crash.
That investigation was prompted by complaints the DOT and DMV failed in their oversight of the limo, which did not have DOT authorization to carry passengers and had been investigated by the DOT for more than a year without being impounded or having its license plates seized. Those allegations first appeared in a 2020 report by the National Transportation Safety Board, although the DOT and DMV have denied any wrongdoing. The DOT twice ordered Hussain to keep the Excursion off the road, but Hussain repeatedly rented it out.
“We are all very hopeful for the upcoming release of the Inspector General’s limousine report in the hope that it sheds additional insight into this tragedy,” Cushing said. “We believe the NTSB report set the table for determining causes and responsibility for the accident. The IG report should flesh out additional failures, if any, on the part of NYS DOT and DMV.”
A spokesman for the Inspector General’s office declined to comment on the timing of the release of the findings of the investigation, which began in 2021.
Neither the DOT nor the DMV immediately responded to requests for comment on the IG report.