Schoharie limousine crash
In the early afternoon of October 6, 2018, a stretch limousine crashed at the junction of New York state routes 30 and 30A north of Schoharie, west of Albany, killing 20: the driver, all 17 passengers, and two pedestrians who were in a nearby parking lot. The passengers were mostly from communities around the Capital District, primarily Amsterdam, where they had gathered to begin their trip. They were on their way to celebrate a 30th birthday at Brewery Ommegang near Cooperstown. Among them were four sisters and two recently married couples.
It was the deadliest transportation-related disaster in the United States since the 2009 Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash outside Buffalo killed 50; it was also the deadliest road transportation disaster in the U.S. since a 2005 bus fire in Wilmer, Texas, killed 23 nursing home residents evacuating from the path of Hurricane Rita.
Investigation of the accident has revealed pre-existing problems with the limousine, the driver and the limousine company. As a result of failing two inspections due to deficient brakes, which a repair shop allegedly falsified having repaired, and other issues, the state had ordered the vehicle out of service. The vehicle was only certified for 10 seats, but had 18 installed. The driver also lacked the required endorsement to his license for carrying 15 or more passengers at a time. After the New York State Police determined that the operator, Nauman Hussain, was aware of these issues yet continued to rent the vehicle, he was arrested on a charge of criminally negligent homicide and later indicted on 20 counts each of that charge and second-degree manslaughter. Trial had been scheduled for May 2020 but has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic; a plea bargain is reportedly under discussion. In preliminary court filings, his lawyers have argued that the vehicle's brakes failed in ways that had not been previously noted by state inspectors and therefore Hussain could not have been aware of; they also point to the work the repair shop falsely claimed to have done as the real reason for the brake failure. The continuing criminal investigation created tensions over access to the vehicle, with the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates transportation accidents in order to determine their cause and recommend safety improvements, having complained that the state police did not allow NTSB staff to examine the wrecked vehicle for several months.
Larger issues have also been implicated. The NTSB has indicated that it is looking at whether the safety regulations governing limousines, which critics have called particularly lax, are sufficient to protect passengers in light of earlier, less deadly crashes; in September 2019 it issued an interim report on the survival factors involved in the accident that suggested some passengers could have lived if they had worn seat belts, and called on the industry and the state to do more to promote and mandate their use. The intersection of the two highways, which many residents say remains a frequent accident site due to its location at the bottom of a long steep slope on NY 30 despite efforts by the state to reduce that risk, has also been cited as a possible contributing factor. Civil lawsuits filed by the victims' families have named the state, a Pakistani tycoon, a repair shop and the store in whose parking lot the two pedestrians were killed in addition to the limousine operator as defendants.
Background
Axel Steenburg and his new wife Amy, of Amsterdam, New York, west of Albany, had planned a group outing for themselves, their siblings, and close friends at Brewery Ommegang, south of Cooperstown, where he had celebrated his bachelor party in June, to celebrate Amy's 30th birthday on October 6, 2018. So that all guests could drink freely, Steenburg arranged for a party bus to take the group there and back. On the morning of the party, the group, ranging in age from 24 to 34, gathered at the Steenburg home. It included all three of Amy's sisters, two of whom were also accompanied by their husbands, and Axel's brother.The party's reservation at Ommegang was for noon that day, but two days earlier, Axel Steenburg learned that the bus to be used had broken down, and the operator refunded him the $50 fee. At 9 a.m. on the morning of the party, he was able to arrange another ride through Prestige Limousine Services, a small operator based in Gansevoort, north of Albany outside Saratoga Springs, for $1,475. They were able to send a stretch limousine that would hold 18 people, one more than was in the group that would make the trip.
Prestige dispatched a 2001 Ford Excursion expanded to seat the additional passengers. Unbeknownst to Steenburg or anyone in his group, the vehicle had failed two inspections earlier that year. The issues that had led to those failures included its brakes, and the state Department of Transportation had ordered it to be taken out of service in September, with inspectors placing a sticker reading "unserviceable" across its windshield, but it had been removed before it was driven to Amsterdam. It had also been listed for sale on Craigslist two days earlier, advertised as "DOT ready".
Driver Scott Lisinicchia, of Lake George, had complained at times about the safety of the company's vehicles. His wife recalled having overheard him say he would not drive a particular vehicle at some times when Prestige called. While he had driven trucks in the past and held a valid commercial driver's license, it lacked the "P" endorsement needed for him to transport 15 or more passengers at a time. Lisinicchia had been cited for driving without this endorsement; he also had several outstanding traffic tickets in Saratoga Springs, enough that his license should have been suspended. However, a clerical error had prevented the paperwork from being filed.
Crash
Delayed by the change in vehicle, the group left Amsterdam late, well after their noon reservation at Ommegang. The Excursion left the city by heading south on New York State Route 30, a long winding two-lane rural road. Why the group chose this route is not known; an investigative report said there were some stops planned between Amsterdam and the brewery.In Duanesburg, the section of Route 30 the limousine was traveling becomes hillier as the road veers east into the Schoharie Creek valley and more. Just north of the blinker at NY 7, the highway reaches a height of land at in elevation, from which it descends almost in the next two miles to its junction with NY 30A. As it crosses over Interstate 88, signs direct trucks to use Route 7 instead. For those drivers who continue south on Route 30, many more signs warn drivers about the steep grade ahead, through which the speed limit is ; a sign located from the intersection indicates the limit is reduced to at that point.
According to the state's crash investigator, the Excursion had made the turn onto Route 30 south from Route 7 eastbound, suggesting that it had departed from its course for some reason as that would not be the most direct route from Amsterdam to Ommegang. It was reported as possible that they changed their minds about the trip completely, or had decided to stop at the Apple Barrel. Lisinicchia may also have gotten lost.
A witness later recounted seeing the limousine on the side of the road in this stretch. They recalled that it was slowly rolling forward, but its backup lights were on, as well as its back-up beepers. They continued past it.
At the bottom of the hill is a right-angled three-way intersection where NY 30A forks off to the north while NY 30 turns southward toward Schoharie, two miles away. Southbound traffic on NY 30 must stop regardless of which way they intend to turn; a sign warns of this several hundred feet uphill of the intersection. When the Excursion reached the junction, at 1:55 p.m., it did not stop and was, according to a witness, going very fast.
The witness, along with a passenger, who had earlier seen the Excursion on the side of the road recalled that after they stopped at the intersection, they saw the limousine coming downhill behind them, its speed increasing. They recalled that the vehicle's engine was loud, almost sounding like a jet. They feared they would be hit but at the last second it swerved around them.
The vehicle continued into the parking lot of the nearby Apple Barrel Country Store where it struck a parked 2015 Toyota Highlander, which in turn struck two pedestrians in the lot who were attempting to get away, and then came to a stop in a gully. The store manager told reporters that customers in the store parking lot were killed when the limo sped down the hill "probably over ". Later it emerged that two pedestrians in the parking lot were killed after being struck by the Highlander, which was driven into a drainage ditch away. All 18 people in the limousine were killed.
All but two were pronounced dead at the scene. A helicopter standing by to transport one was instructed instead to standby at a hospital in nearby Cobleskill, while the patients were transported there by ground so as to avoid disrupting treatment one was already receiving. One was pronounced dead on arrival; the other was transferred to the helicopter and taken to Albany Medical Center, where they were likewise pronounced dead.
An eyewitness claimed the crash sounded like an explosion, and when she exited her parked car, she saw a body on the ground, and then registered the screaming from bystanders. Another eyewitness told reporters she saw "...this large van, a very unusual looking vehicle out here in Schoharie in the bushes and really wrecked, hit a tree", and she watched first responders break windows to get victims out.
Investigations
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were at the scene of the crash. A state trooper told reporters that they had deployed a reconstruction unit, facial identification and a drone in order to gather data about the crash and the victims.NTSB head Robert Sumwalt told reporters two days after the crash that it was too early to say whether the limo had been speeding at the time; the agency was focusing on human and mechanical factors as causes. It was, however, a "high-energy impact" that had severely damaged the front and left portions of the vehicle, and, Sumwalt intimated, driven the engine into the passenger compartment. There were no skid marks on the pavement, suggesting the driver had not applied the brakes, or that they had not been functioning well, before reaching the stop sign. Investigators would be looking at the airbag control module for data that might answer their questions.
Robert Patnaude, commander of State Police Troop G, which patrols the Capital District, said on October 9 that his agency was treating the case as a criminal investigation due to the level of negligence possibly involved. "We'll determine if there's any criminal culpability on the part of anyone," he told the media. "If there is, we'll hold them accountable."
Conflict between NTSB and state police over access to vehicle
The state police's investigation led to some tension with the NTSB team. Since the former investigation is a criminal case, it takes priority, and the limousine remains in NYSP custody until it is finished. The NTSB was not listed on the original search warrant, which was apparently interpreted as disallowing them access to the vehicle, despite the issuing judge's belief to the contrary. Almost two weeks after the crash, the federal investigators complained privately to the Associated Press that they had not been able to even look over the vehicle.On October 22, the state police announced that it would soon be allowing Hussain's defense attorney, Lee Kindlon, and defense experts, to look at the limousine, along with the prosecution. NTSB investigators, said state police spokesman Beau Duffy, had been able to look at the vehicle's exterior but not yet examine its internal mechanics.
The day after the article was published, Senator Charles Schumer told the media that an NTSB investigator had been "granted limited access" to the limousine. The state police issued a statement confirming that, and also noted that it was not the first time their federal counterparts had been able to view the Excursion. However, they were not yet permitted to examine it as they wanted to until the criminal investigation had concluded, and the defense attorney for arrested suspect Nauman Hussain and any investigators he had hired had had a chance to do so as well, an issue the NYSP said the NTSB was fully aware of.
The state police promised the NTSB its investigators would get their chance to more fully examine the limo in the following weeks. Schumer said that the NTSB would likely release a report on the crash in three months; a board spokesman clarified that that report would likely be preliminary. The investigation, and the full final report, could possibly take a year or two.
In late December, the NTSB still had not gotten the access to the Excursion, nor even other Prestige vehicles it wanted to examine, and went public with a letter to Mallery, the Schoharie County district attorney. "e are gravely concerned that your lack of responsiveness to our requests has seriously impeded our abilities to carry out our congressionally-mandated duties to properly complete this safety investigation and potentially prevent similar accidents in the future", the agency's lawyer wrote, alleging that the delays had possibly compromised evidence. The D.A. and state police had expressed concerns of their own that the NTSB might release information that could compromise the criminal investigation, and that federal investigators might be called as witnesses in any criminal trial.
In mid-January the NTSB and Mallery's office reached an agreement under which the board's investigators would be recalled from their furlough due to the government shutdown and allowed to examine the Excursion, then stored in a tent behind Troop G headquarters in Colonie, north of Albany. A more permanent structure would be erected to shelter the limousine. However, a spokesperson for Capital District congressman Paul Tonko stressed that "while progress has been made, terms for a final agreement remain unresolved."
The NTSB became concerned and objected in light of a request by state investigators to remove the transmission and torque converter from the vehicle without its investigators present, since without doing that carefully evidence the board wanted to examine could have been destroyed. The NTSB has still not been added to the search warrant due to a delay from Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery.
In correspondence between Mallery, NTSB counsel Kathleen Silbaugh and Schoharie County Court Judge George Bartlett, who had issued the warrant, the federal agency accused Mallery of being obstructionist and deceptive. The D.A.'s office, Silbaugh wrote in a January 7 letter, had made an in camera request of Bartlett on December 24 for a supplemental warrant that would allow state police to remove the transmission and converter. He told prosecutors they had four days to let the NTSB know of their request, and that it in turn had until January 7 to make any comments to him before he made any ruling. However, Silbaugh told the judge, only on December 31 did Mallery's office even inform the NTSB that it had made the request, and did not go into specifics about the intended removal. "Indeed, the NTSB was under the impression that the supplemental search warrant was being sought for the purpose of adding NTSB investigators to the list of persons and entities authorized to examine the crash vehicle."
However, on January 4, Silbaugh wrote, she was discussing the request with the Schoharie County Clerk of Courts, who informed her of its specific purpose. After the close of business that day, Bartlett said in a letter of his own, Mallery sent him a fax asking that he sign the warrant so the transmission and converter could be removed three days later and examined by a state police expert. Mallery's fax said that NTSB director Robert Molloy had verbally acquiesced in the request and that she would soon send a copy of an email from him saying the same; however the correspondence, as reviewed by the Schenectady Daily Gazette, did not include any email from him.
Silbaugh told the judge that Molloy had not consented to the search; rather he had told Mallery that the NTSB was still working on its response, and reiterated that its investigators needed physical access to the Excursion. Silbaugh claimed that the state police had not allowed any NTSB personnel access to the vehicle since October 12, and even then made them stand away. Mallery countered in a letter of her own that the state police had allowed the board's investigators "three lengthy opportunities" to review the limousine and remained in regular contact with them over their findings. Silbaugh reiterated that the NTSB had been kept at a distance, and that Mallery had told her that even taking measurements and photographs could compromise the evidence without explaining how. A January 11 attempt to resolve differences via a conference call involving Bartlett and all the parties reportedly resulted in Mallery hanging up after 45 minutes.
Mallery argued to Bartlett that since the NTSB was not named in the search warrant it did not have access to the Excursion. The judge rejected that argument, but wrote her that "t appears the easiest way to break this impasse is to include the NTSB on the search warrant." He asked the agency to submit suggested language, and for defense counsel and Mallery's office to submit any opposition, by January 14 so he could rule on it by January 16. In the interim he issued an order that the limousine remain at its present location.
In her letter responding to Bartlett, Mallery said that the NTSB had had more access to the vehicle than it claimed, citing several dates in October. She also disputed the agency's claim that evidence had been compromised, and proposed that the board's investigators be allowed to examine closely, photograph and measure the Excursion under the supervision of state troopers, as long as they did not alter, remove or destroy any evidence. "It is concerning", she wrote, "that politics are seemingly of greater concern to some than justice..."
At the end of January, Bartlett was able to broker an agreement between Mallery, the state police, Kindlon and the NTSB. It allows the federal investigators to photograph the limousine and take some scrapings. However, they may not take any brake fluid from the vehicle since there is too little to share.
In early February the limo, which remained in a parking lot at state police headquarters, was moved a hundred feet to a special protective shed built by the NTSB. Joe Tacopina, newly retained as Nauman Hussain's defense attorney, suggested that Mallery's efforts to keep the federal agency from examining the vehicle was the former's attempt to protect a weak case: "It is very telling that the DA has been trying to prevent the NTSB, the agency that has the most expertise in investigating transportation accidents in the world, from inspecting the vehicle."
The supplemental search warrant ordering the state police to remove the transmission and torque converter was signed on January 30; it is not known whether it has been executed. Lawyers for the victims' survivors, only one of whom at that time had served Hussain with paperwork, expressed concern that they had not been able to access the vehicle. They feared that crucial evidence might be destroyed or altered by the investigation.
State police
The state police concentrated their investigation on factors specific to the accident: the vehicle, its driver and Prestige Limousine. Within a week of the crash, they had enough evidence to make an arrest.Vehicle
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at an October 8 news conference that Scott Lisinicchia, the driver of the limo, did not have a Commercial Driver's License with a passenger endorsement required to operate the vehicle. Cuomo added that the limo was a "chopped vehicle", cut and extended to long, more than its original length, with added seats. It would thus need a federal certificate to operate, which the limo involved in the crash did not have. The Excursion had also failed inspection the previous month due to not only the absence of this certificate, but mechanical issues like a hydraulic antilock brake warning indicator light that stayed on, a dangling brake line that could have made contact with a tire, defective emergency exits and defective windshield wipers, making it illegal to operate on public roads in the state until those issues were corrected.In April 2019, a court filing by prosecutors indicated that DOT had held a hearing before an administrative law judge into Prestige's failures to maintain the vehicle on October 6, 2017—exactly a year before the crash. No one from Prestige attended the hearing, which could have resulted in a default fine of up to $5,000. Mallery said she planned to argue that Hussain had criminal intent from the beginning of Prestige's ownership of the limousine, since he had improperly registered it as a livery vehicle, allowing him to get the vehicle inspected twice under less stringent Department of Motor Vehicles standards rather than DOT's.
The inspection further noted that similar issues had been found in a March spot inspection; the September inspection report notes that the Excursion had been driven since then. In the previous inspection the vehicle was also cited as having 18 seats installed, in excess of its designed passenger capacity of 10. Prestige Limousines, the owner and operator, was told to cease and desist from limousine operations until further notice. It was later reported that different license plates had been affixed to the limousine at its March and September inspections; however, the vehicle identification number had not changed.
During the first six months of 2018, Global Liberty, Prestige's insurance company had canceled coverage on the Excursion six times. Whenever that happens, DMV automatically revokes the vehicle's registration, restoring it only when the owner can get the coverage restored or find new coverage; otherwise the license plates must be surrendered. The limousine's registration had been restored for the sixth time the day before the crash. Why Global Liberty had canceled the coverage, which usually costs $5–10,000 annually, was not known; the company would not comment.
Prestige had failed to attend an April DOT hearing where they could have either offered proof that the issues that had led to the previous month's failed inspection had been addressed, or contest the agency's claim. Since they did neither they were fined $700, less than the company charged to rent the limousine. The state cashed the check from Prestige, its records show, but took no further action. In August a state trooper specializing in commercial vehicle enforcement wrote a violation notice, but no tickets, when he observed that the vehicle did not have its owner's name and contact information visibly stated on the side as required by law after he saw it unloading passengers in a no-parking zone on the day of the Travers Stakes horse race in Saratoga Springs. A final hearing was held on October 5, 2018, the day before the accident; again Prestige did not appear.
In December, WNYT spoke with the owner of an Albany limousine company that had sold Prestige the Excursion in 2016. He said they had owned it for 15 years prior to the sale; it had been in good working order at that time and had passed its last inspection. He was cooperating with both the state police and the NTSB.
Two days before the crash, the limousine had been listed for sale on Craigslist. The asking price was $9,000; the seller claimed it was "DOT ready" and was in "excellent condition" with on it. The seller did not identify themselves but the phone number given as a contact was one that Prestige had used.
The aunt of victim Erin McGowan told the media that shortly before the crash her niece had texted her with concerns about the vehicle's condition. A last-second replacement for the bus originally rented, which had broken down, its engine was apparently unusually loud. "When we get to the brewery we will all b deaf", McGowan wrote, with several Face with Tears of Joy emojis appended, at 1:37 p.m. Three minutes later, Allison King texted her fiancé that the brakes were burning and the vehicle was coasting.
In a Times-Union story, other limousine company operators around the state questioned how Prestige was able to continue operations with all the violations it had accumulated and the lack of proper permits; in their experience the state was diligent in enforcing its regulations. One owner said it was his understanding that if more than 20 percent of an operator's vehicles have been declared unserviceable, the state can force it to cease operations, an order only a court can override. Records kept by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which also has authority over limousine operators, showed that Prestige had 80 percent of its vehicles unserviceable at the time of the accident.
When Hussain was talking with state police and DOT officials two days after the accident, one of the latter reportedly admitted to him that "we've been treating you with kid gloves". The Times-Union analyzed federal data and found that, while the state DOT has been proactive in inspecting the vehicle types it regulates, it has a poor record of following up and ensuring violators make the required repairs, since at least 2003. In a 2017 federal audit, the state DOT admitted it had only managed to verify repairs made to 1 percent of the 10,000 school buses, limousines, and motor coaches it inspects twice a year. The state comptroller's office had likewise found in a 2014 audit that of the out-of-service violations it issues, no written record of repair existed for 40 percent and another 25 percent were filed later than the mandated 15 days after the violation. Some had even filed certifications later found to be false.
Mallery appended the full report on the causes of the crash by prosecution expert Brian Chase to her October 2019 response to the defense motion to dismiss the charges. He ascribed the cause to "catastrophic brake failure due to the neglect of mandated commercial vehicle inspections and maintenance by company personnel". Chase found the brake pads were corroded and the tubing to the rear brakes deficient enough that they had failed to work at the time of the accident. He had also examined the soles of Lisinicchia's shoes, noting that his right loafer was severely deformed, with an imprint of the tread on the brake pedal suggesting he was desperately trying to stop the Excursion.
Driver
A couple who had rented the same vehicle, also driven by Lisinicchia, for their wedding a year earlier told Albany station WNYT that the limo was in poor condition then. Its exterior was flecked with rust, some of which was covered by duct tape. They, too, found its engine loud.The couple also recalled that Lisinicchia had been erratic and made dangerous moves such as backing up to make a turn he had missed while on a busy road. They had noticed empty beer cans in the rear as well, and said he had an unidentified passenger in the front seat all day. When they asked him about these things, he responded belligerently and profanely. The couple's complaints to management of what was then doing business as Saratoga Luxury Limousine were initially dismissed and only resulted in a partial refund.
A driver who had worked for a different limousine company that used the same property as Prestige and sometimes shared its fleet told WTEN that he had driven the Excursion in 2015 and it was "absolutely unsafe". In particular, the brakes barely worked. "I was terrified", he said. "You just couldn't stop. You really had to put your foot on the brake." When the vehicle had begun smoking during a prom, the children's parents refused to let them ride in it. Neither Prestige nor his employer, the driver said, did anything more than minimal maintenance work. After leaving the company he reported the vehicle to the state.
Lisinicchia's family said he had been given an unsafe vehicle to drive and would never have knowingly put passengers in harm's way. His wife said he had been driving for Prestige part-time for a year. She recalled overhearing him on the phone, when the company called with an assignment, complaining that he would not drive a particular vehicle and requesting another one.
At the time of the accident Lisinicchia was not listed on the limousine's insurance policy as a driver. James Pachter, one of three who were, said that while he readily drove any of the Lincoln Town Cars that made up the rest of Prestige's fleet he had refused any assignments in the Excursion for 18 months prior to the accident. "The brakes were not functioning properly", he said. He later testified before the grand jury that indicted Hussain.
In April 2019 the Times-Union reported that toxicology tests had found that Lisinicchia had "significant amounts" of marijuana in his system when he died, in addition to traces of anti-seizure medication. The marijuana levels suggested he might have been a regular user. The family's attorney told the newspaper that those marijuana levels did not necessarily indicate impairment at the time of the crash; the disclosure, which neither state police nor Mallery confirmed, was seen as possibly complicating the prosecution of Hussain.
Company
Further investigation led to disclosures that other Prestige vehicles had failed inspections in the past. The company's address was a hotel in Gansevoort, north of Albany, and its owner, Shahed Hussain, was provisionally identified by The New York Times as a former Federal Bureau of Investigation informant in the Newburgh Four terrorism case who had previously avoided prosecution for his alleged involvement in a scheme to sell false identification while he was employed at the state's Department of Motor Vehicles. Police were unable to interview him after the accident as he had returned to his native Pakistan, reportedly for health reasons; the day after his departure the March inspection found the limousine unserviceable.In February 2019 it was reported that he had since the accident moved to Dubai, which as part of the United Arab Emirates has no extradition treaty with the U.S.; his son's attorney maintained that he was still in Pakistan. Two months later, prosecutors alleged in a court filing that on several occasions after his father had left the country, Hussain's son Nauman had claimed to be Shahed when DOT inspectors contacted him about the Excursion, only admitting his true identity when they visited him at the business a month before the accident.
Hussain's attorney, Lee Kindlon, spoke from personal experience when he later dismissed the notion that there was any intent on his client's part to deceive by answering to his father's name. He, too, had worked alongside his father, a prominent Capital District criminal defense lawyer, and had often been confused with his father or addressed by the older man's name. "I ran a business and worked with my dad for 10 years, and sometimes it's just easier to answer the phone and get to the heart of the conversation instead of exactly what you are being called or who's being asked about it."
After the accident, Nauman spoke with the police in his father's stead, telling them he was running the company until Shahed returned. At the 2019 suppression hearing, the trooper who had written the August 2018 DOT violation notice for the lack of owner information on the Excursion said Hussain, who had gone up to Saratoga, told him that he was in the process of setting his own limousine rental company separate from Prestige and was just borrowing that limousine from his father's company as he established his business. His attorney, Lee Kindlon, suggested the crash was due to Lisinicchia's unfamiliarity with the intersection. "You just can't stop at something like that," he said. "I think the state Department of Transportation is just looking to point a finger."
Authorities had also found issues with the Hussains' maintenance of the Gansevoort hotel Prestige used as its business address. Neighbors had frequently complained about the condition of the property; in early 2017 the state Department of Health shut it down and temporarily evicted the generally low-income long-term residents after a sewer line failed. The Hussains attributed it to sabotage by a tenant they had evicted; an inspection found, however, that it had been poorly installed, with improper fittings and no support. A few days after they put the property on the market for $1 million in October 2019, DOH again shut it down, citing structural hazards that could pose an immediate risk of death such as missing smoke detectors, and raw sewage on the grounds. The decision did not affect three other properties in the region they had also listed; a week later a court barred them from selling any of their other properties while the lawsuits against them were pending.
NTSB
While the NTSB is also interested in what the state police have learned about the Excursion, Lisinicchia and Prestige, they are also looking into some larger issues raised by the crash that could have contributed to not only it but other accidents: the state of limousine regulation generally, and the design of the intersection. In February 2019 the agency released a preliminary report describing the facts of the crash but saying that the investigation into its cause was ongoing.Limousine safety regulation
"This didn’t have to happen", Helaine Olen wrote in a Washington Post column after the crash. "There are massive loopholes in the federal safety regulations governing limousines". Primarily, she wrote, vehicles that have to meet strict safety standards when manufactured do not have to be re-examined after being expanded. Efforts to change this at the federal and state level have generally failed in the face of vigorous opposition from the industries involved.Raul Arbalaez, an engineer with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, agreed. "They don't have to go back and prove that they meet any of the crash safety criteria", he said of vehicle expanders and the limousine operators. The Excursion that crashed in Schoharie, he speculated, likely weighed at least, even without accounting for its passengers. "That is a lot to ask of the same four tires and brakes that vehicle came with."
In January 2019, the Times-Union reported that, among the many violations found by state inspectors prior to the crash, the limousine did not have a required manufacturer's tag identifying the company that had expanded it. Its own attempts to determine who had done so were unsuccessful. The newspaper found that after being built at Ford's Kentucky Truck Assembly, the vehicle was shipped and sold new at a dealership in St. Charles, Missouri; who bought it was unknown as the dealership does not keep sales records for longer than a decade. After American auto manufacturers stopped making limousines themselves in the 1960s, a cottage industry of expanders emerged, and most of them are based either in Southern California or around Springfield, Missouri, the latter a three-and-a-half-hour drive from St. Charles.
In September 2019, the NTSB reported the vehicle had been purchased from a Ford dealership by 21st Century Coachworks in Rogersville, east of Springfield, who converted the limousine, sectioning it, extending the frame and adding three bench seats in the new rear passenger compartment. The NTSB was unable to find any evidence that the vehicle had ever received the required Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards tag with information on the alteration following the expansion.
The Times-Union found in Missouri state records two companies based in Rogersville with "21st Century" in their names. Both used the same address but had different principals, and went out of business around the same time in 2003. Their principals had both died and their widows could not be reached.
State records showed the vehicle's odometer had on it when it was bought by Albany-area Royale Limousine, whose owner would not say who had expanded it—at the time it had nine seats, half those it had when it crashed. Many of the Los Angeles-area companies that expanded limousines at the time have gone out of business. The manager of the Ford dealership in St. Charles told the newspaper said he did not recall selling to one of the larger ones, and the two biggest expanders in Springfield said they had not expanded the Excursion, though a manager at one believed its size and interior features pointed to one of the defunct California concerns.
Kindlon said all the modifications to the limousine predated his clients' ownership. They, too, were attempting to find out who had made them. "Ultimately, one of the questions I think everybody needs to answer is were those modifications some sort of proximate cause of this event" he said.
After it was reported that the limousine in the crash had been cited several times for insufficient braking capacity, defined as having less than 80 percent of the brakes' designed capacity, Frank Figueroa, a California vehicle constructor who had not worked on the Excursion, told NBC News that that failure might have resulted from constricted brake lines. While the original brake lines to the front wheels are retained when a vehicle is expanded into a limousine, he said, it is necessary to extend those that reach the rear wheels. For that reason, the extended lines are usually made of steel to avoid any risk of obstruction or constriction.
Vehicles such as the Excursion used by Prestige are associated in the industry with "third-tier guys" based in smaller cities, Figueroa said. Nonetheless, he maintained, as manufactured it had an towing capacity. If its original braking system were in place, it should have been able to come to a complete stop at the intersection.
Another issue relevant to the accident was seat belt requirements, or the lack thereof, for passengers in limousines. New York, like many states, only requires passengers in the front seat to use them. Expanders are not even required to add them, nor any additional side airbags. "earing seat belts does save lives", Sumwalt told the media. "Whether or not it would've made a difference here or not, that remains to be seen." Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director, said the crash would be "a watershed event for the limousine industry", as he predicted that the lack of or failure to use seat belts would be cited as a major cause for the loss of life in the accident and rules would be changed to require them. The board's preliminary report, however, noted that the seats added to the vehicle did have lap belts but not whether they were in use at the time of the accident.
The NTSB issued Safety Recommendation Report HSR1902 in September 2019, entitled Providing Occupant Protection for Limousine Passengers. In the report, the NTSB determined the crash was not survivable for the limousine driver as the front seating compartment suffered a "complete loss of occupant survival space". The rear passenger compartment was able to retain survival space, but the additional seats and seat belt restraints installed during the limousine extension were not adequately anchored, nor were they properly designed for crash protection.
In addition, although the seats originally installed by Ford remained attached to the floor and intact, none of the occupants were wearing seat belts at the time of the crash; the seat belts for the aftermarket seats were under the seats and inaccessible. As a result, the NTSB issued a recommendation to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, asking the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to mandate minimum performance standards for aftermarket seats installed in vehicles modified into limousines. The NTSB also recommended that limousine operators encourage passengers to wear seat belts, and that mandated state inspections should check that seat belts are functional and accessible.
Federal and state responses
After a 2015 limousine crash on Long Island that killed four, Schumer, the Senate's current minority leader, had asked the NTSB to study limousine accidents as the beginning of an effort to improve safety and regulation. He and Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's other U.S. Senator, along with Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal, again wrote to the board after the accident, saying it pointed to the need to improve regulation and safety standards for limousines and the companies that operate them. New York state legislators also have introduced bills to improve limousine safety.State senator Simcha Felder's bill would ban the use of any stretch limousines older than 10 years and require a minimum of $2 million in liability insurance coverage, as well as changing procedures for vehicles that fail inspection. Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, who has made limousine safety a cause since 2006, introduced several bills in her chamber to implement recommendations made by a grand jury that investigated the 2015 crash, including requiring seat belt use.
A lobbyist for the industry told the Times-Union that many of these bills seemed premature since the cause of the accident was not yet known and the state's regulations for limos were already among the strictest in the U.S. Nonetheless, the state has already made some administrative responses, changing responsibility for inspecting limos to the DMV from the DOT and reclassifying any vehicle designed to carry more than nine passengers in addition to the driver as a bus.
In January 2019 the Times-Union reported that state police had seized the license plates of 59 limousines owned by companies whose registrations had been suspended for failure to comply with state DOT safety regulations; later the paper reported that the DMV had "blacklisted" the vehicle identification numbers of those limousines from which it had removed plates to prevent them from being re-registered under new ownership. DMV officials declined to respond to the paper's questions as to why this had not been done to the Excursion before the accident although it had been pulled over twice after being ordered off the road, citing the ongoing criminal investigation. "The state is acting affirmatively to crack down on bad actors who put innocent New Yorkers in danger", a spokesman said. However, the article noted, such action might not have prevented Prestige from operating it anyway, since at the September 2018 inspection the company had put a second set of plates on not just the Excursion but a Lincoln Town Car that had also been ruled unserviceable earlier that year.
At his news conference announcing his state budget proposal shortly afterwards, Cuomo announced a package of sweeping reforms to state limousine safety regulation, reforms suggested not only by the Schoharie crash but the 2015 Long Island crash that killed four women on their way to a bachelorette party. The centerpiece is an outright ban on stretch limousines similar to the Excursion; the governor also called for criminal penalties, some felonies, for vehicle owners and inspection stations that circumvent regulations as Prestige and its inspectors allegedly did. He also proposed prohibiting limousines from making U-turns, requiring inspection stations to report attempts to bring unauthorized vehicles in for inspection, and ending the state's exemption from seatbelt laws for passengers in all vehicles for hire.
After heavy lobbying by limousine operators, Cuomo left the stretch ban out of his state budget proposal in late February, although the other measures remained. Trade organizations for the limo industry applauded the move, saying it would have forced many of them in state to sell their fleets and go out of business. However, an auto body shop owner whose niece, Rachel Cavosie, was one of the victims, criticized Cuomo for doing so, saying the governor had "abandon the families of 20 people".
When the budget did pass in early April, several reform measures were included. A felony offense for operating a limousine that causes a death was created, civil penalties for operating one without authority and/or in violation of safety regulations were increased as were liability insurance coverage requirements. The authority of DOT and the state police to confiscate the license plates of non-compliant limousines was clarified, and DMV inspection stations were required, under pain of certification suspension, to report any attempt by a vehicle under DOT's jurisdiction, such as a limousine, to attempt to get a DMV inspection instead. Stretch limousines were also forbidden to make U-turns.
Configuration of intersection
The family that owns the Apple Barrel Country Store told reporters that the intersection and hill are a recurring issue. Sumwalt confirmed to the media that his agency will be looking at the configuration of the junction as a possible contributing factor. "We do know that there have been other crashes at this intersection," he said. "o we want to see: Were there factors in the roadway itself that could have led to the conditions of this crash?"The intersection was originally configured as a Y, slightly uphill of its present location, which was more developed in the early 20th century and today's Route 30A was part of NY 43. After World War II, Route 30, which had followed the course northeast that 30A does today, was realigned to its present course and the intersection reconfigured into a Y with Route 43 following a new road, parallel to a former rail corridor, that forked off south of the original intersection; the portion that had led west from the intersection to the realignment was vacated. In 1960 Route 43 was truncated to end at its junction with Route 30 in Schoharie; the portion north of the Route 30 intersection was made part of Route 30A, newly created at the behest of the Fulton County Automobile Club.
This configuration of the intersection necessitated that traffic on southbound 30 not only stop at the bottom of the hill but turn left just before doing so. After Interstate 88 was built through the area in the early 1980s, with an exit on Route 30A a mile north of the intersection serving both roads, Route 30 was likewise realigned to clear a corridor for the interstate. Its brief concurrency with NY 7 two miles northeast of the 30A junction was replaced with a four-way intersection, and a new, curved section along the hillside replaced the previous straight descent to the intersection. With the interstate access trucks began using that section of Route 30 more, sometimes having accidents at the bottom of the hill when their brakes failed.
Residents in the intersection's vicinity, and Schoharie's town board, asked the state to do something about it. After a fatal accident in 2008, the state DOT began a multiyear project to reconfigure the intersection a third time, straightening Route 30 to make a T intersection with 30A. When it was completed, vehicles over were banned from the section of the highway between routes 7 and 30A; those traveling south on Route 30 must follow Route 7 down to Route 30A just north of the I-88 exit. The weight limit was eventually lowered to and, by the end of 2015, all trucks. Schoharie town supervisor Alan Tavenner told The New York Times that he believed the intersection had become more dangerous since then, but two days later said to reporters from Gannett News Service that the required truck detours "seem to have helped" lower accidents at the site. The family that owns the Apple Barrel says accidents still occur.
Four days after the accident, The Daily Gazette filed a request with DOT under the state's Freedom of Information Law for emails to and from its resident engineer for Schoharie County, and the department's regional engineer, "concerning safety or concerns about safety or accidents". DOT refused the request, saying public disclosure of those requests could interfere with the ongoing investigation by the state police. In December, the newspaper decried this in an editorial: "Explain to the public exactly how releasing information already prepared by state officials and known within the DOT about this intersection is going to impede a police investigation into the crash." It doubted that it would, and noted that any statistical data in those records was not covered by that exemption and should be disclosed.
In August 2019, the state DOT announced it would not be changing the speed limit on the section of Route 30 going downhill into the crash site. Morrissey said that not only were the posted limits in accord with engineering standards, "here is also absolutely no indication that the posted speed limit in this area contributed in any way to the tragic crash last October." Sal Ferlazzo, who had filed a civil suit against the state and Hussain over the crash for the family of victim Amanda Rivenburg, disputed that claim, saying a former DOT engineer he had retained as an expert witness said the placement of a speed limit sign so close to the intersection was "a major design error". In an editorial, the Schenectady Daily Gazette, after facetiously wondering if the state was afraid the speed limit could sue it over being lowered, asked what harm might be done by lowering the speed limit. "Urging drivers to slow down as they near an intersection is never a bad thing."
A year after the crash, Floyd Guernsey, a Schoharie town councilman who lives near the intersection, recounted at a meeting that he had seen more accidents than he could count there, even since October 2018. He suggested that the only solution would be permanently closing Route 30 at the top of the hill. "I think most people would be fine with taking the extra two minutes to go around", he said, suggesting a barricade at the top of the hill would be as much a monument to the victims as the actual monument then planned for the site. Tavenner agreed but reminded the board that the state DOT would have to agree, and the board resolved to make that request.
Inspection stations
On October 15, the Times-Union reported that the limousine had received a valid inspection sticker from a state Department of Motor Vehicles inspection station, which it should not have. Vehicles designed to carry more than 10 passengers had, since 2011, been subject to inspection by the DOT, and privately operated repair shops licensed to do inspections are legally required to refuse them to such vehicles unless they have a waiver allowing them to do so. The limousine also had livery license plates, which again it could not have legally borne due to its high passenger capacity.In late November the Times-Union followed up on the story. Both the truck stop in Wilton that had issued the Excursion its first sticker in July 2016, and the Mavis Discount Tire in Saratoga Springs that had issued the second one in May 2018, 10 months after the first one had lapsed, were still offering inspections. Neither business would comment to the newspaper. The DMV likewise refused to say whether it had taken any action, citing the ongoing criminal investigation into the crash.
Five months later the newspaper reported that the Excursion had first come to DOT's attention in June 2017 when Chad Smith, one of its investigators visiting the Saratoga Springs Mavis had seen the Excursion in the shop's lot. He noticed that it had livery plates, which can legally be placed only on unstretched "town car" limousines. At work he checked the car's registration and found it was approved for 11 seats, confirming his suspicions; records showed it was registered to the Hussain's companies and address. An email to them received no reply, and Smith was unable to contact them until January 2018, when he found their advertisements online, after which he issued a violation notice after being quoted nearly $700 for a rental, and only in April was he able to actually inspect the vehicle and order it off the road, he told state police.
Seven months later, Ferlazzo told the Times-Union he believed that the Mavis inspection would be a more significant aspect of both the civil and criminal case than was apparent at that time. Attorneys for the other victims' families were also looking into the company's role in the accident, and were, Ferlazzo suggested, encountering resistance. "People are circling the wagons" he told the newspaper.
In October 2019, the Times-Union reported that a former manager at Mavis had told investigators the month before that it had falsified its records of repairs, including those it allegedly performed on the Excursion, in order to meet corporate sales quotas. In May 2018, he had purchased a brake master cylinder from a nearby auto parts store to install in the limousine, but another employee told him later that it had not been even though Prestige had been billed for that work, and he returned it to the store. Other brake work done on the vehicle at different times had not actually been done, he also claimed.
Hussain's defense team suggested that their client had been deceived by Mavis as well and that the store's fraudulent practices were the real cause of the accident. A Mavis spokesman defended the chain's business practices and said many of the defense's claims were inaccurate, without going into any specifics. Paul Davenport, who had as attorney for Erin and Shane 's families sued Mavis, said that even if the defense claims were true Hussain was still at least civilly liable since passenger safety was his responsibility.
Mallery concurred in a letter to the court a week after the story was reported, writing that there were other problems with the Excursion's brakes that a diligent owner would have become aware of and addressed. The prosecution's expert, Brian Chase, had concluded the master cylinder was functional, and had recently been replaced, when the accident occurred, she noted. In response, Hussain's lawyers continued to blame Mavis.
Arrest of Nauman Hussain
On October 10, state police arrested Nauman Hussain, the operator of the limousine company and son of the owner, in Watervliet and charged him with criminally negligent homicide, a Class E felony, the least serious under the New York Penal Law. He was taken to Schoharie County Court in Cobleskill and arraigned, after which he pleaded not guilty to the charge, posted $150,000 bond and was released. District Attorney Susan Mallery asked for higher bail than usual to be set for a nonviolent felony, and for the court to require that Hussain surrender any passports he might have, due to the perception of a flight risk. Upon his arrest, she told the court, his vehicle was packed with his personal belongings, including several suitcases.Kindlon said his client had no passports to surrender, and was not even a citizen of Pakistan. It was later reported that he had surrendered his U.S. passport, and a state police inventory of his belongings made public in October 2019 included an airplane ticket and passport application Hussain had not been fleeing, Kindlon said, but moving in response to death threats he had received; investigators did not find that claim credible. Kindlon said he, too, had received threats, and as a result, there was a greater police presence in the courtroom.
If convicted of just that charge, Hussain would face from 15 months to four years in prison. Kindlon added, however, that he had been advised the state could press 20 counts of the charge, one for each victim, and ask for the terms to be served consecutively, which would result in a 26–80-year sentence. He complained that the state had "jumped the gun", since Mallery had told him the day before that charges might not be filed for months, due to the seriousness of the accident.
Kindlon conceded the limo had minor safety issues which the state told Prestige to fix, but said it did not reach the criminal level. He claimed that DOT had evidence that the brakes had been repaired in June. When asked why the state did not have a record of this repair, he told reporters, "That's a great question for DOT".
A DOT spokesman had previously stated that in the wake of failing the September inspection, a large sticker indicating the vehicle was "unserviceable" was placed on the windshield; the sticker also has language warning that anyone other than an inspector who removes it can be fined for doing so. It was found, crumpled, on the front seat of Hussain's Infiniti QX56 after his arrest. Even if all the violations had been corrected, the company would have been required to have the vehicle reinspected in its entirety. He called Kindlon's claim that they were fixed "categorically false".
The arrest was not Hussain's first. After a 2014 traffic stop in Cohoes, police said he and his brother Shahyer, who was driving, attempted to pass themselves off as the other. Police eventually learned their true identities. Shahyer's license had been revoked after several dozen suspensions; Nauman's license had been suspended several times but was valid at the time. Nauman was charged with false personation and conspiracy, both misdemeanors; the disposition of the charges is not known.
It was reported that a Bentley Continental GT owned by Shahyer had been destroyed in a suspicious 2013 fire. Suspicions first arose at a Queensbury garage after the mechanic repairing it found that damage to the transmission appeared to have been deliberately inflicted and was thus not covered by the warranty. However, no charges were ever filed.
Within a month of the crash, prosecutors began presenting evidence against Hussain to a Schoharie County grand jury. In February 2019, Hussain retained Joe Tacopina as defense attorney, who criticized the impasse between the state and the NTSB as an effort to protect a weak case. He accused the state of "trying to get evidence to match their misguided theory".
Trial
On April 5, 2019, just before the six-month deadline to do so, the grand jury indicted Hussain on 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter. Mallery declined to discuss details at a news conference afterward. Kindlon had not seen the indictment paperwork, but he called it "flawed fundamentally at odds with itself."A week later, Hussain was free on $450,000 bond. His lawyers argued he was not a flight risk; Kindlon said Hussain had stronger ties to the region than he himself did. Mallery withdrew her request for a source hearing after Tacopina objected, saying that Hussain had not been charged with running a criminal enterprise. Trial was set for September.
Later in the week, after Kindlon had reviewed the indictment, he was still dismissive. "They've never once asked for him to come back here and explain what happened, never once asked to interview him", he told WNYT. " really makes me think that they just reached out and grabbed the closest person they could." The bail application Kindlon filed for Hussain suggested three points the station speculated he might be planning to use in defending his client: that the state was simultaneously arguing that Hussain knew the limousine was unsafe and that he did not know, that the state's own evidence shows that he was trying to keep the vehicle in proper repair and that the intersection's design was a greater cause of the accident.
Late in May, a defense filing by Tacopina opposing a prosecution request for a sample of Hussain's DNA to compare with any left on the "unserviceable" sticker removed from the Excursion cited a prosecution report from a month before which had concluded that "catastrophic brake failure" was the reason for the accident. A New Hampshire consultant retained by the state police had written that the right rear disc brake caliper pistons were inoperable, that the crossover rear brake line was severely corroded resulting in a burst line, and that two of the other wheels had reduced braking efficiencies due to poor condition. Although inspectors had ordered the vehicle out of service and placed the sticker a month before the accident, Tacopina argued that none of the violations cited at that time concerned the affected portions of the brake; the hanging line that was specifically noted was part of the antilock brake system which was not involved in the crash. Therefore, he said, the issue of the removed sticker was "a red herring" as far as the cause of the accident was concerned. On June 17, Bartlett ordered Husain to provide a DNA sample within ten days.
Since the defense had only received access to the limousine and its parts a week before the filing, Hussain's trial has been postponed to January 2020. In June 2019, the court approved Mallery's request for Gail Heatherly, an assistant state attorney general and former Manhattan prosecutor, to join her team, which only includes one other full-time assistant and two part-time prosecutors, due to the case's "unusual complexity".
In August the state police forensics lab found a DNA match between Hussain and the discarded sticker. Kindlon said that did not prove any theory of how it got there, only that it was there. "It's an evidentiary nullity," he said. He argued that test results on the limousine's brake fluid, which he was awaiting, would shed more light on how the accident happened and who might be responsible.
At the beginning of September Kindlon and Tacopina filed an omnibus motion seeking several actions. First, they asked that all charges be dismissed for "insufficient evidence", a standard defense motion that is often denied, as well as for unforeseeability. Were the trial to be held, they asked to suppress Hussain's statements to police after the accident. Lastly they asked that Mallery turn over a transcript of the grand jury proceedings to them, and disclose any aspects of Hussain's prior arrest record they might introduce at trial as evidence against him. Hearings on the matter and any other pretrial motions will be held in early November.
At the end of the month Bartlett gave Mallery three weeks to turn over the requested information. The court later released some of the documents Mallery had filed; in one of them she had said that among the materials they would turn over as potentially exculpatory was a security camera video from Mavis. What it depicted was not known. Barlett again postponed the trial until March 2020.
In her response, filed in late October, Mallery appended the full report on the crash by the prosecution's expert, Brian Chase, which attributed it to "catastrophic brake failure" caused by neglect of the vehicle. Chase dismissed defense contentions that Mavis's alleged fraud left Hussain with the mistaken impression that the master cylinder had been replaced when it actually had not, since he had found the cylinder to be functional and recently installed. Mallery also explained that the Mavis security camera footage from April 2018 showed the manager who had alleged the fraud told an employee who had informed him that the Excursion's calipers, hoses and master cylinder all needed to be replaced that Hussain only needed a "temporary" repair since he planned to sell the vehicle; footage from the actual inspection in May shows the manager telling Hussain that " brakes now and I'm hoping it stays that way because if it happens again you're gonna need the other three calipers." Mallery added that Hussain had also been informed of the issues with Lisinicchia's license as a result of a traffic stop two months before the accident.
Judge Bartlett denied the motion by the end of the month, ruling that there was sufficient evidence to support the charges when interpreted in the light most favorable to the prosecution. Hearings were scheduled on a defense motion to suppress statements Hussain made to DOT inspectors and investigators from March 2018 onwards, when they had first approached him about the issues with the Excursion. Bartlett also allowed the defense to review the grand jury transcript, although he denied their request to make them public.
In late November Bartlett also ruled the statements Hussain made to state police before and shortly after the crash were admissible, since he was not in custody and the police interest was "investigatory, not accusatory." Kindlon called the decision "100 percent expected." Since the defense had been able to inspect and review materials it had not previously had access too, "in that sense, it was a win for us."
Two months later, Bartlett again postponed the trial date to early May 2020. At a news conference afterwards, Tacopina said that the prosecution had been slowed by bail reform laws in New York that had gone into effect at the beginning of the year, which also required that the state provide defendants with the names of witnesses against them earlier in the process than it previously had; it was at the time awaiting results from a Texas lab analyzing liquids found at the scene. While Hussain could have had his bail exonerated under those laws as well, Tacopina added, he chose not to out of respect for the victims' families.
After a late February pretrial hearing, Tacopina speculated about whether a truly impartial jury could be found due to the small size of the Schoharie County jury pool. It might, he thought, be difficult to find jurors who did not know, or had not formed an opinion on, the crash. He did not think he would have to request a change of venue, though.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a statewide stay-at-home order in mid-March, has delayed the trial further since Schoharie County has suspended all jury trials until normal court operations can resume. Kindlon said a March 30 hearing was postponed; he was hopeful that the court might be able to handle some matters via teleconferences.
Possible plea deal
In July it was reported that a plea deal was being considered after Mary Ashton, victim Kenneth Ukaj's mother, reported receiving a memo from the state police's crime-victims unit suggesting the possibility, which she was unhappy about. Mallery, according to lawyers for the victims' families, fears the case may be too complex for a jury to understand; she confirmed her office had been talking to Hussain's attorneys.If Hussain takes a plea, he will likely be sentenced to time served under his bail conditions and probation, without any prison time. Ashton feared that the state was seeking the plea deal partly to avoid testimony about DOT and DMV's lax oversight of Prestige. The state might also have been concerned about the defendant's connection to Malik Riaz Hussain, the Pakistani billionaire whom Shahed Hussain, Nauman's father, says is his brother. Attorneys for other families, and several members of those families, said at a later news conference that while they were not opposed to a plea deal, they wanted any such arrangement to require that Hussain allocute, or state the facts of the crime, in open court when pleading, to resolve the contradictory accounts of the Excursion's maintenance from himself and Mavis. Such a statement would be admissible as evidence in civil proceedings.
Aftermath
Governor Cuomo released a statement which expressed his heartbreak for the victims, commended first responders for helping through the night, and noted the state police were working with federal and local authorities to investigate the crash.On October 8, Prestige refunded the $1,475 Axel Steenburg had paid for the limo to his credit card. Hussain was arrested the same day. The Steenburg family had not asked for the money back.
The Apple Barrel Country Store began to collect donations for local first responders, a mostly volunteer organization, and planned a vigil to honor the victims at the store on October 9. The family that owns it said it was establishing a non-profit organization to build a permanent memorial at the crash site next to the store. They hoped it could be completed by the first anniversary of the crash. The 20 wooden crosses placed at the site as a temporary memorial were donated to the state museum in September 2019.
Thousands attended an Amsterdam candlelight vigil for the victims along the banks of the Mohawk River on the evening of October 8; many residents of the city knew at least one of the dead. Since three of the dead had been state employees, Cuomo ordered all state government agencies to fly the flags outside their buildings at half-staff on October 11.
Funeral services for eight victims—the four sisters, their three husbands and one husband's brother—were held at St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church in the city a week after the crash. Hundreds paid respects at the wake the day before, including Tonko and state Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, whose district includes Amsterdam.
One victim, Adam Jackson, had been a Republican deputy commissioner of elections for Montgomery County. His death had distracted his coworkers so much that the absentee ballots they sent out for the November elections accidentally omitted a line for Republican congressional candidate Joe Vitollo. When the mistake was discovered, new ballots were mailed to 89 voters in the town of Amsterdam who had received the incorrect ones.
On October 28, Healing Schoharie, a non-profit founded to help the victims' families and first responders to the accident, held a benefit concert at Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady, raising $43,000. To reach the organization's $50,000 goal, Healing Schoharie reached out to Bruce Springsteen via the Backstreets fanzine. In May 2019 the singer autographed a poster from the concert to be auctioned on eBay; the $1,525 winning bid, helped Healing Schoharie reach that target by the end of that month. The money will be used first for a dinner in honor of the first responders, then for building a permanent memorial at the site.
At the same time the Reflections Memorial Foundation, the non-profit set up by the Apple Barrel, unveiled its design for a permanent memorial at the site based on an idea suggested by Janet Steenburg, mother of two of the victims; the store would donate the land. It would consist primarily of 20 concrete stepping stones; each one would have a print of one victim's shoes. Around the base of the memorial would be the words "You left your footprints on this Earth as a reminder you were here, we know you walk together and are forever near" carved in stone.
In June 2019 the town of Guilderland held a softball tournament in memory of Patrick Cushing, who had grown up there and played many sports, at the field he had once played on. Ten teams competed; all the money raised was donated to the Amsterdam Youth Sports Association. Afterwards, a memorial bench with his name on it was unveiled.
The street in front of Wilbur H. Lynch Literacy Academy, one of the Amsterdam school district's two middle schools, has been named Abby Jackson Way after Adam's wife, since she taught reading there.
Civil litigation
In late November, the parents of Amanda Rivenburg, one of the limousine passengers, filed the first civil lawsuit related to the accident. Their action, brought in Supreme Court for Albany County, named Shahed and Nauman Hussain as defendants, making many of the same allegations of negligence that state investigators had already publicized. Their suit did not specify any amount of monetary damages they were seeking, as their attorney, Sal Ferlazzo, indicated they were just trying to find out what had happened. He also said they would be suing governmental entities such as state agencies in a separate action in the state's Court of Claims.If they did, those lawsuits might have less chance of succeeding, due to the outcome of similar actions against the state brought by the families of victims of the 2005 Ethan Allen accident, where a small tour boat on Lake George capsized in the wake of a bigger one, killing 20. The NTSB had later faulted state regulators for not reducing the boat's passenger capacity; however the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, had dismissed the suit, holding that the facts of the case did not create an exception to the state's sovereign immunity, a legal doctrine under which governments it applies to can be sued only if they allow themselves to be. A lawyer who had represented some of those victims, and had been retained by two of the families of limousine crash victims, told the Times Union that the state's more direct role in regulating Prestige might result in a different verdict.
In March 2019, attorneys for the Hussains filed their answer to the Rivenburgs' lawsuit. They asserted a range of affirmative defenses, such as that the plaintiffs contributed to their own deaths by failing to wear the seatbelts in the limousine, and that the crash as a whole was an act of God for which their clients could not be held liable. An attorney for the Rivenburgs characterized the defense as "boilerplate", suggesting that the Hussains' attorneys chose to raise an array of standard defenses without settling on one or two that might be best suited to the instant case.
Two months later, Global Liberty Insurance, which had covered the Excursion at the time of the crash, filed court papers saying its liability for the accident was capped at $500,000. Divided among all 20 victims, that meant some families would receive, at most, $25,000—and that was before legal fees the company's lawyer sought to have deducted. Ferlazzo called the insurer's motions "outrageous and an insult to the victims". A personal-injury lawyer consulted by the Times-Union agreed that "these families are getting screwed" and that as things stood they were not likely to see any more money from Global Liberty. However, it was possible that they could recover additional money from the victims' own insurance companies, if the victims had cars of their own, since New York requires all motorists to have supplemental uninsured motorist coverage as part of their mandated auto insurance policies, and Lisinicchia was not listed as a driver on Prestige's policy for the limousine.
At the end of August, family members of Erin and Shane, another of the married couples killed in the crash, sued Mavis Discount Tire, alleging poor repair work on the limousine and the alleged illegal inspection by the chain's Saratoga store contributed to the McGowans' deaths; "They played a role here", said their lawyer. "We're going to hold them accountable." Prestige, too, was named as a defendant. While Mavis said it sympathized with the crash victims, the company "bears no legal responsibility for this tragedy and the events that led up to it, and we will defend ourselves vigorously against all claims." It was possible that the plaintiffs could recover more from Mavis than they could from Prestige due to the latter's liability cap. The McGowans were joined in suing both defendants by the mother of Matthew Coons, killed along with his girlfriend Savannah Bursese, in October, the day after the first anniversary of the crash, in Fulton County Court. Her lawyer and Ferlazzo have both indicated that after the criminal trial, when more evidence is available, they planned to add the state DOT as a defendant.
The McGowans' attorneys would not wait that long for the state's evidence. In December they sued DOT and DMV in Supreme Court for Albany County in the name of the two victims' estates after those agencies denied their requests for records under the state's Freedom of Information Law pertaining to the inspections of the limousine, citing the ongoing investigations, just as they had in response to requests from media organizations. The estate argued that neither agency cited a specific statute or precedent that applied to that. Some of the information they sought has since been made available in prosecution filings in the criminal case, but the McGowans' lawyers maintained that it should have been disclosed under FOIL in response to their request over the summer. In May 2020 an Albany County state Supreme Court justice agreed with their argument on appeal that the investigations were insufficient justification for withholding the records and ordered them released within 20 days. Late the following month the state announced it would appeal that decision.
In mid-September Jaclyn Schnurr, the wife and daughter of Brian Hough and James Schnurr respectively, the two pedestrian victims, filed suit in Supreme Court for Cayuga County. In addition to Hussain and Mavis as defendants, she named the Apple Barrel Country Store, whose parking lot she had been in with her husband and father when the Excursion struck them just feet away from her, claiming that the store should have put up barriers to prevent crashes into its parking lot since it knew that the intersection was dangerous. The accident was not the first time vehicles that could or did not stop at the bottom of the hill had gone into the store's parking lot. The store's owners could not be reached for comment.
The family of another victim, Amanda Halse, filed their lawsuit a month later. Like the other plaintiffs, they have named Mavis and the Hussains as defendants. The Halses have additionally named Pakistani business magnate Malik Riaz Hussain, believed to be a distant relative, since he allegedly financed the Hussains' acquisition of the Wilton motel where Prestige is based. Shahed Hussain has reportedly said on some occasions that he is Malik's brother, and Malik's name is on the deeds to the Wilton motel Shahed and Nauman operate.
Shortly before Christmas, seven more victims' families filed two separate suits. The first names the state as defendant, alleging it was negligent both in ensuring the intersection and Prestige were safe. The second, filed in Supreme Court for Montgomery County, names Prestige, the Hussains and Mavis as defendants, with the same allegations as those made by other plaintiffs.
A June 2020 suit filed by the family of victim Michael Ukaj, in Saratoga County, goes into greater detail in alleging Mavis's liability. Prestige's drivers, including Lisnicchia, refused when possible to drive the Excursion as they were aware of its inadequate braking capability, the Ukaj family claims. Employees at Mavis, the Ukajes' complaint says, were aware that repair work the shop had done to the limousine's brakes was insufficient and that problems remained. Two years before the accident, the suit alleged, a Mavis mechanic put a vice grip on the bent left rear brake line following a rotor replacement, leaving the vehicle reliant almost entirely on its front brakes, and in May 2018 the store put a valid inspection sticker on the Excursion without performing the inspection. Mavis denied responsibility and said it will ask to be removed as a defendant from all suits filed against it over the crash.