Hussain
Union this week, Zostant said he will never forget working for Hussain.
“I recall going to the Home Depot for materials with him,” Zostant recalled. “He always had a wad of hundreds that would make a high roller in Vegas envious.”
Zostant said he was surprised by the shoddy work that had been done on the site, and how Hussain was able to keep building inspectors at bay.
“If you have any information in regards to his whereabouts, he still owes me back wages,” Zostant said.
A June 2006 police report by the Colonie police department said that Hussain’s two sons had been found using the residence and had been bringing friends over despite the fact that the building lacked a certificate of occupancy or working lighting.
Town files also show that Colonie building inspectors also repeatedly threatened legal action against Hussain and his wife in letters to them, even after the sale of the home to Rehan in 2006.
Ted Delucia, who was chief residential building inspector for the town at that time but now is in private practice, said he doesn’t recall efforts to locate Rehan, or whether anyone had met the mysterious buyer in person.
“It doesn’t ring a bell to me,” Delucia said.
When Hussain has gotten in trouble with building inspectors and others, he has reportedly used his status as an FBI informant to his advantage.
Mark Mykins, a building inspector for the town of Wilton, was asked during a 2011 deposition in the civil case Hussain brought against the water authority if Hussain ever tried to “intimidate” him during his visits to the motel by saying he was working for the FBI.
“I don’t know if he tried to intimidate me,” Mykins testified. “He did mention that he was an informant for the FBI.”
Hussain was also going by the name “Mike Begum” at the time, testimony in the same case shows.
Ruane, the FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment on Hussain’s alleged comments. It’s unclear if they were made while he was assisting on active criminal cases.
“While I cannot speak to the process of how informants are handled specifically, I can say that the FBI’S use of undercover operations and informants is done in accordance with strict guidelines and in close coordination with the Department of Justice and the United States Attorney Offices,” she said.
Hussain, while using the Route 9 motel for his limousine business, at one point prompted town officials to accuse him of parking his limos on the property — sometimes on the grass — without a special permit. He told the town zoning board of appeals in 2013 that he had previously kept the vehicles at a property on Albany Shaker Road in Latham.
Zoning board members wouldn’t give him permission to run the limo business from the motel, and suggested he go back to keeping them in Latham.
Prestige didn’t acquire the stretch Excursion until 2016, according to vehicle ownership report. A Google Earth image taken on July 29, 2017 shows what appears to be the Excursion and two other stretch limos parked at a warehouse off Weibel Avenue in Saratoga Springs.
The site is near where the state DOT did several spot inspections on Prestige’s vehicles earlier this year, when the agency ordered the Excursion off the road until the brakes and other safety issues were fixed. The owner of the warehouse property could not immediately be reached for comment.
The motel business was never a money-maker, Hussain has testified in multiple cases, and his wife and older son Shahyer were responsible for running it due to his frequent trips abroad, although his wife grew sick in later years. In his 2011 civil deposition, Shahed Hussain testified his wife was out of the country getting medical treatment.
Travel and money
Hussain has never revealed what he does on his business trips abroad, although he admitted during questioning as a witness in the criminal trial involving the so-called Newburgh Four that the FBI paid for his travel for a trip that included a visit to a militant training camp in Pakistan and a visit to a mosque in London.
During his own 2011 testimony in the Saratoga County civil lawsuit — which was ultimately dismissed — Hussain testified that he was being supported financially by his wealthy brother and had access to a family trust fund whenever he needed cash.
Hussain often registered property in his wife’s name and said he had the power of attorney for her. He would on occasion also use her last name to identify himself.
In 2010, he took his wife off the deed of the motel and replaced her with Malik Riaz Hussain, the founder of Bahria Town, the Pakistani real estate conglomerate.
Hussain testified in the civil case that the move was made because his brother had been helping pay the motel’s expenses, including the mortgage.
It has, however, never been established that Hussain is the brother of Malik Riaz Hussain, although photos appearing on social media earlier this year — which could not be independently verified —show Hussain in Pakistan with a high-level executive from Bahria Town, along with other government officials from the Punjab province.
Bahria Town officials have not responded to requests for comment, and attempts to reach Shahed Hussain directly and the people he appears with in photographs have been unsuccessful.
Hussain was also accused earlier this year by professional boxer Amir Khan of failing to repay tens of thousands of dollars he claimed to have given Hussain after meeting him at the Islamabad home of Malik Riaz Hussain. Khan said Shahed Hussain told him he was the brother of the wealthy businessman, and that he would repay the money as soon as he could. Khan said the two met up in London to discuss repayment, but Hussain asked for even more money at the time.
Court documents reviewed by the Times Union suggest it was the brother of Hussain’s wife Yasmeen providing Hussain and his family with financial assistance over the years. Yasmeen died in 2013.
The wife’s brother, Naeem Malik Hussain of Montreal, offered to provide a $68,000 loan to Hussain and his wife after they filed for bankruptcy in 2003. He also gave $100,000 to Shahyer Hussain, the older of the couple’s two sons, in 2014 to purchase a Cohoes rental property, although Shahyer claims it was a loan to make improvements.
In a suit filed against
Shahyer in Albany County seeking the money back, Naeem Malik claimed to have “aided in raising” Shahyer, who goes by the name Haris.
The case is still pending. Ryan Manley, an Albany lawyer representing Shahyer, did not return a call seeking comment.
“I have continuously made good faith efforts to resolve the matter amicably with Uncle Naeem as this has caused much dissension and turmoil among our family,” Shahyer said in a 2017 affidavit. “I was in and out of the country attending to an ill family member that is very close to me.”
Shahyer did not name the family member, although he said he had been in Dubai.
Manley recently wrote the judge overseeing the case that his client cannot be deposed “due to current complex issues involving my client and his family.”
That’s an apparent reference to the limo crash and the criminal charge against his brother, Nauman Hussain, who has pleaded not guilty and is being represented by Albany attorney Lee Kindlon.
In comments to the Times Union, Naeem Malik said that Shahed Hussain isn’t who he claims to be in court testimony. He isn’t the brother of Malik Riaz Hussain, the billionaire, and he didn’t grow up with Bhutto, he said.
“I think the FBI should stop protecting him and let me have my day in court,” Naeem Malik said.”
Chris Churchill, Mike Goodwin and Robert Gavin contributed to this report. Web presentation by Joyce Bassett.
Read more: timesunion. com/schohariecrash