Limo operator formally indicted in deadly upstate crash
The upstate car service operator
whose stretch limo killed 20 people in the deadliest US crash in a decade has been hit with a 40-count homicide and manslaughter indictment.
Prestige Limo operator Nauman Hussain wasn’t behind the wheel, but he still faces 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter in the second degree – one for each victim – in connection to the horrific Oct. 6 crash in Schoharie, NY.
A grand jury handed up the new indictment on Friday at the Schoharie County Courthouse; Hussain had previously faced just a single count of criminally negligent homicide.
Hussain’s 2001 Ford Excursion stretch limousine had dodged rigorous state Department of Transportation inspections for years before the crash, according to state records
obtained by the Albany Times Union.
In October it blew through a stop sign at a T-intersection in the rural upstate town last fall, crashing into a country store and killing the driver, 17 passengers and two others.
“We have worked extremely hard for the last six months,” District Attorney Susan Mallery told reporters of Friday’s grand jury action,
the Times Union reported.
A team of three grief counselors were calling the families of the victims Friday afternoon to inform them of the indictment, she said.
“My confidence in my client’s innocence has never been stronger,” Hussain’s lawyer, Lee Kindlon, told The Post.
“Our own investigation in the past six months has shown a number of things that we can use to our advantage so that my client walks out of a court a free man,” he added.
He didn’t clarify what those findings were.
https://nypost.com/2019/04/05/limo-operator-formally-indicted-in-deadly-upstate-crash/
