LIMO FAILED INSPECTION
Co. eyed as victims mourned
The father of one of the pedestrians tragically killed in the limousine crash that took 20 lives in upstate New York on Saturday says he doesn’t “know how we’ll get over this.”
Brian Hough, an assistant professor of geology at SUNY Oswego, was visiting the Apple Barrel Country Store in Schoharie, N.Y., a town 40 miles from Albany, with his wife, son and father-in-law on Saturday when he was struck by the careening limousine heading to a birthday party with 17 passengers and one driver.
Greg Hough of Mechanicsburg, Pa., said his son was in midsentence when he was struck. The crash killed all 18 people in the limo and Brian and his father-in-law.
“I was in immediate shock,” Hough said of hearing the news from his youngest son JT. “I thought I was going to drop over.”
Hough told the Herald his son Brian had an early interest in ge- ology and worked his whole life to make a career of his passion.
“I used to joke with him that ‘you study advanced rock and dirt,’” Hough said with a laugh. “He fell in love with rocks and sand and dirt and became a geologist. He was a true science buff. He lived an interesting life and was afraid of absolutely nothing.”
Hough said his family is now trying to cope with the death of two sons. He said he lost his oldest son, Todd, a lawyer, in 2015 to melanoma.
“We went through this with Todd,” Hough said, “and Brian was always helping us try to deal with it. He would come down a couple times a year and he would do all our yard work, go through a few house projects.
“That’s just the kind of person he was.”
SUNY Oswego sent a message to its campus yesterday, calling Brian Hough a “dedicated faculty member who inspired his students to learn,” according to Syracuse.com.
“He was well liked by the school,” Hough said.
“He had to work his way up and everybody, including his students, liked him.”
Hough added that his son was a standout soccer player at Boiling Springs High School and was “stubborn to his own advantage.”
“He was a handful,” he said with a laugh. “But he turned into a wonderful son and a great father.”
Questions surrounding the limousine that caused the deadliest accident in almost a decade arose yesterday as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the vehicle failed a safety inspection and its driver wasn’t properly licensed. The state moved to shut down the owner, Prestige Limousine, as state and federal authorities investigate the cause.
“In my opinion, the owner of this company had no business putting a failed vehicle on the road,” Cuomo said.
“Prestige has a lot of questions to answer.”
Federal transportation records show Prestige is owned by Shahed Hussain, who worked as an informant for the FBI after the Sept. 11 attacks, infiltrating Muslim groups by posing as a terrorist sympathizer in at least three investigations. In one case, he helped convict men accused of plotting to bomb New York synagogues.
His role at the FBI was assailed by civil liberties groups, who accused him of helping the FBI entrap people.
Asked about Hussain, the FBI said it would not confirm or deny who is or is not an informant.