Limo firm exec gets probation in crash
SCHOHARIE, N.Y. — The operator of a limousine company was spared prison time Thursday in a 2018 crash that killed 20 people when catastrophic brake failure sent a stretch limo full of birthday revelers hurtling down a hill in upstate New York.
Loved ones of the dead excoriated Nauman Hussain, 31, as he sat quietly at the defense table during a hearing that was held in a high school gymnasium to provide for social distancing among the many relatives, friends and media members attending.
Hussain, the former operator of Prestige Limousine, had originally been charged with 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter in what was the deadliest U.S. transportation disaster in a decade.
But under an agreement for Hussain to plead guilty only to the homicide counts and spare families the uncertainties and emotional toll of a trial, he is being sentenced to five years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service. His case had been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
A family rented the limousine in 2018 for a birthday celebration. En route, the limo’s brakes failed on a downhill stretch of state Route 30 in Schoharie, west of Albany. The vehicle blew through a stop sign at a T-intersection at more than 100 mph and crashed into a small ravine.
Seventeen family members and friends were killed, along with the driver and two bystanders outside the store.