Limo manager sentenced in deadly NY crash

SCHOHARIE, N.Y. — A former limousine company manager was sentenced Wednesday to at least five years in prison for his role in a crash that killed 20 people in rural New York.

Nauman Hussain, 33, was convicted of manslaughter earlier this month after prosecutors argued that he intentionally failed to properly maintain an SUV-style stretch limo, which then failed to brake on a downhill stretch of road in Schoharie, a village west of Albany.

The 2001 Ford Excursion was packed for a birthday celebration on Oct. 6, 2018, when it hit a parked car and trees before coming to rest in a stream bed.

Judge Peter Lynch sentenced Hussain to an indeterminate term of 5 to 15 years in prison. The state’s parole board will determine when Hussain will be released after he serves the minimum.

Some people who lost loved ones in the crash spoke in court before the judge announced the sentence.

“October 6, 2018 is the date forever burned into my heart and soul,” said a tearful Bethany King, who lost four members of her family.

“You have received a justified guilty verdict,” King said to Hussain, who was looking down, “while the rest of us here have received a life sentence.”

The limo’s driver, all 17 passengers and two bystanders were killed in the crash, one of the deadliest U.S. road wrecks of the past two decades.

Prosecutors presented evidence at the trial that the limo had been allowed to deteriorate, and that Hussain’s rental company had taken steps to keep it on the road, despite a failed inspection that should have taken it out of service.

The trial came after a judge rejected a plea deal last fall that would have spared Hussain prison time.

WTEN Former limo company manager Nauman Hussain is taken into custody Wednesday after sentencing in Schoharie, N.Y.