SCHOHARIE — Limousine company operator Nauman Hussain will go on trial May 1 on charges that accuse him of renting out a dangerously damaged stretch limousine that crashed Oct. 6, 2018 in Schoharie, killing 20 people.
State Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch on Wednesday said he set the trial date for next spring after District Attorney Susan Mallery asked for more time to prepare the now nearly 4-year-old case for trial. Lynch made the decision years after Mallery told the case’s prior judge and Hussain’s lawyer that she was ready for trial.
Lynch’s decision came two weeks after he tossed a plea deal in the case that would have spared Hussain, 32, from serving state prison time.
Hussain’s attorneys, Mallery and Lynch met Wednesday morning to set the trial date. Hussain’s attorneys, Lee Kindlon of Albany and Chad Seigel of New York City, met via video conference since they had previous scheduling conflicts and couldn’t attend the hearing in person at Schoharie County Court. Nauman and his girlfriend where in court with his brother Haris and a bodyguard.
Lynch, who was assigned to the case after the retirement of Schoharie County Judge George R. Barlett III, said he was taking “jurisdiction” of the case through its resolution.
The judge originally planned to start a trial this year but said that Hussain’s attorneys had scheduling conflicts with the Oct. 31 and Dec. 5 dates he had proposed. Mallery, he said, then sent him a letter saying she needed more time to prepare for trial, so he set the May date.
“That essentially gives everyone six months or so to get this case ready for trial,” Lynch said.
Lynch said he will not entertain any unnecessary delays.
It is unclear why Mallery is not ready for trial as of now, although the state Attorney General’s Office had previously told the Times Union that Mallery had refused help previously for the case. Local prosecutors have offered to lend a hand too.
Hussain, 32, operated the unlicensed limo company that rented the vehicle that crashed in the Schoharie County countryside, killing the driver, 17 passengers headed to a gathering in Cooperstown, and two bystanders standing in a local store parking lot where the vehicle crashed on Oct . 6, 2018.
Hussain, whose family ran the small limo business out of their Wilton hotel, was charged with 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide and 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter. One year ago, Hussain reached a plea deal with prosecutors that spared him incarceration in return for an admission that his failure to keep up repairs on the stretch limo led to the crash.
Schoharie limousine crash: Key coverage
The case took a dramatic turn Aug. 31 when Lynch threw out a previous plea deal that had been negotiated with Bartlett.
Under the deal, Hussain had agreed to five years of probation in exchange for pleading guilty to 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide in the case. However, Lynch said the deal was flawed and he could not accept it.
The victims’ families had been upset since last September when Bartlett agreed to the plea deal. However, Bartlett retired before the official sentencing could take place after Hussain completed a year of interim probation. Hussain had agreed to two years of interim probation, but state law only allows that in certain circumstances not covered by this case.
Hussain was required to perform 1,000 hours of community service under the plea agreement, about 600 of which Kindlon said had been completed. Some of that work was supposed to include public speaking appearances.
Because of that, Lynch said anything Hussain has said publicly basically over the past year is “not admissible” in court. It is unclear what Hussain may have said during his community service. He has declined to speak at any of his court hearings in the past year.
Kindlon and Seigel have said they will focus their defense strategy at trial on putting the blame for the crash on Mavis Discount Tire, which serviced the limo, a 34-foot stretch Ford Excursion that weighed more than six tons. The cause of the crash was blamed on bad brakes, and Hussain’s attorneys alleged that Mavis did not properly fix the brakes when Hussain brought it in for service after it was ordered off the road in March 2018 by a state Department of Transportation investigator. DOT failed the vehicle after a roadside safety check.