Limousine Crash

PEOPLE ! We are 10 min from Amsterdam NY, it is part of our extended community. The accident occurred 20-25 min away from us. I have traveled this intersection many many times over the years when I was on the road as an Adjuster. Many of those who died were known to us, my sons and daughter in law. They either went to school with them or worked with them. Tonight there was a candle light ceremony in Amsterdam attended by 2000 + for those who died. The intersection is a nasty "T" intersection just across from the Red Barrel. It was NOT a wedding party, it was a group out for a wine tasting. It was NOT an intersection crash. The second car that was struck and 2 pedestrians were in the parking lot of the Red Barrel a local store and eatery. The un fact checked comments and political commentary are reprehensible. First I ask for RESPECT for those who lost their lives. Second get you facts straight. Try checking www.cbs6albany.com, www.wnyt.com or www.dailygazette.com. I am just sick about some of you "comments"
Gus
 
will I believe Gus but the news people can't get there facts at all. first a wedding party, second a birthday party and now it turns out a wine tasting party.

were I understand that for the people that have friends and relatives involved in this accident it's personal and the why just dosen't matter. it would seam to me 2000 at the candle light virgule need to be 2000 at the county commissioners meeting and have something done with this intersection. you could name the new one for the people lost at this incident. but from the talk this parking lot has seen a number of these wit this one being the worse
 
My theory

Being in the field of forensic pathology for many years, here's my theory: None of the passengers or driver in the limousine were killed in this accident. The 18 year old vehicle from upper New York Sate probably had lots of undercarriage rust from the past 17 years of driving on salty roads in the winter. As the limousine sped down the road, one by one, the passengers became unconscious and quietly died due to an exhaust leak. Protected by the partition, the driver proceeded to transport his dead and dying passengers until he finally succumbed to the deadly fumes, hence, no obvious sign of breaking at the intersection. I think they were all dead before they were "killed". There is no way all 18 died from trauma instantly. The same thing happened to golfer Payne Stewart except he was in an airplane and the internal cabin pressure caused his (and the pilot's) death prior to them crashing to earth. Just my thoughts.

Jim
 
It is all very sad, regardless of the cause. To Gus's point, we only know the facts we are told, there is always more to a story than is written, or reported. Gus knows the story on a very personal level and if anybody knows upstate NY, everybody knows everybody and everything. But, I also think that Jim Staruk probably has a point. In any event, 20 innocent people were killed and someone is going to be held accountable, perhaps a group of people. These types of accidents can be prevented with strict enforcement of every law.

May all of these victims rest in peace. Our hearts go out to their families and friends for their tragic loss.
 
Picture of the "Limo" at rest is in this story.
https://gellerreport.com/2018/10/deadly-limo-murder-arrest.html/

The roofline and coachwork look pretty straight for an 8000 pound vehicle coming to a complete stop against a berm from 60mph.

The owner has a less than stellar record as is also told in the story.
The owner has returned to Pakistan where 2 Murder charges remain open against him. He supposedly entered the US via crossing the border from Mexico. He then managed to use the system to get a job as a Translator for NY DMV, where he set up a system to get Driver Licenses.

The "limo" was for sale on CraigsList for $9000 a few days before the crash.
Lawyers for the owner have stated the defects that caused the "limo" to fail Inspection, tires and Brakes, had been corrected prior to listing the "Limo" for sale.

Engineers have calculated the G forces sustained by all passengers and the driver, and they are above maximum G forces ever sustained by a human.

I was thinking Carbon Monoxide initially as well, although texts are now coming to light from the passengers minutes before impact. CO may well have contributed.

Autopsies will reveal if it was or not.
 
the news today stated the reason for the limo not to have passed inspection was that the light for the anti lock brake would not come on. given how they have reported other things we will see if that stays.
 
Just announced- the son/manager of the company owner who won't be leaving Pakistan soon has met Mr Handcuff for 20 counts of Negligent Homicide.

MYS cowboy hat wearing ticket spitters even managed to find they had stopped the "limo" a couple months back, with the same driver, and had ticketed for Driving out of class. There is no doubt the driver didn't know he was Driving out of class Saturday on his final trip.
 
Additional info now public-
The vehicle had obtained an Inspection sticker by means of the owner finding a NYS Inspection Station to pass it. That Inspector is in a world of trouble since regular NYS Inspection Stations are forbidden to inspect for hire vehicles such as buses and limos.
Since the inspection was unlawful the car was on the road illegally.

Item 2- Initial Autopsy report from Albany County Medical Examiner says all victims in the car died of blunt force trauma to organs.
No toxicology report is available yet and it won't be for a while since NY encourages MEs to batch Tox testing for economy.
 
I've lost count of which chapter this is in the still unfolding saga.

I'm sure there will be more to come.

SCHOHARIE, N.Y. (WRGB) - A Mavis Discount Tire shop failed to perform critical brake work on the stretch limousine involved in the Schoharie limo crash that killed 20 people, court documents allege.
The Times Union first reported the news.
A letter to the attorney for Prestige Limousine operator Nauman Hussain from Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery gives a summary of statements given by a former manager of Mavis Discount Tire on work done on the limo.


The former manager, Virgil Park, discussed the work supposedly done on the limo back in May 2018, about five months before it would end up in the October 2018 crash.

Park told investigators he purchased a brake cylinder on May 4. He claims, while the invoice from May 11 indicates the part was installed, he says another employee told him that he was never installed.
Instead, the part was returned. Park says he learned that information shortly before he was terminated in February 2019, a few months after the crash.
He also told investigators he did not perform the DMV inspection of the limo, but gave the DMV inspector the certification card he needed for the inspection.
According to the district attorney's office, Park spoke of a billing practice at Mavis in which certain services were substituted on invoices, for the ones actually performed in order for the store to meet sales quotas established by the corporate office.
For example, he cited invoices dated 6/25/18 and 6/8/18 that indicted brake labor and a power steering flush was performed on the limo. But he told Mallery the brake service was not performed.
Additionally, Park told investigators a brake flush was listed on an invoice as having been done, but in fact the brakes were just bled.
The defense attorney, Lee Kindlon, has once again asked Judge George Bartlett to dismiss the case, saying his clients could not have known or been responsible for the catastrophic brake failure that caused the accident.
He told CBS6 his own team’s work on the case had raised questions about what work was done on the limo.
"Without revealing too much it did not appear as if the brakes had been replaced a few months before the crash. We had healthy suspicions," Kindlon said.
CBS6 told you two weeks ago that the judge had given the DA permission to present Kindlon’s team with “potentially exculpatory information.” Wednesday’s news is not that. Kindlon is still waiting on that information.
He says this entire case has been conducted in reverse -- that, in a rush to judgment, his client was charged quickly and then the investigating began in earnest. CBS6 asked him if thought his client had been made a scapegoat.
“Right away he seemed to be most convenient target,” Kindlon said. “Very quickly everybody was against him.”
So what happens next? It’s a waiting game for Hussain’s defense team. Kindlon says its standard practice to have a conference with the judge and DA to figure out what happens next, and he expects that could happen anytime.
He also said while there seems to be a direct line between Mavis, these new developments and the accident, he wants answers rather than to “train our guns on Mavis all at once.”
 
FBI Islamic terror asset owned the broken-down limo in DEADLY CAR CRASH that killed 20, DRIVER UNLICENSED
Shahed “Malik” Hussain, whose undercover work for the FBI has been controversial, testified over the course of several weeks during the ongoing trial of four Newburgh men standing trial for a terrorism plot. Hussain’s role in that sting operation came under fire recently from defense attorneys who, during their cross-examinations of the government’s star witness, pried at Hussain’s finances, conflicting statements, murky background and his previously unknown criminal history in Pakistan. The case is on schedule for closing arguments this week. Meanwhile, lawyers for two Albany men convicted in 2006 of money laundering in support of terrorism said they are closely examining whether Hussain’s testimony in the Newburgh case is in conflict with his testimony at the trial in Albany four years ago. They say the government never disclosed the fact Hussain had been arrested twice for murder in Pakistan. The government said they couldn’t confirm any details, but haven’t said what they actually knew in 2006.
https://gellerreport.com/2018/10/deadly-limo-murder-arrest.html/

https://gellerreport.com/2018/10/deadly-limo-murder-arrest.html/
EXCLUSIVE – Owner of limousine company involved in horror crash is a former FBI informant who was paid $96,000 to go undercover to expose terror plots after fleeing to the US from Pakistan where he’d been accused of murder
  • Shahed Hussain is the owner of Prestige Limousines, also known as Hasy Limos
  • It was one of his cars that crashed in upstate New York on Saturday, killing 20
  • The vehicle failed a safety inspection last month and the company has had four others taken off the road
  • Hussain, who also goes by ‘Malik’, worked as an informant for the FBI after being caught running a DMV scam where he helped test takers cheat
  • In 2007, he started going undercover in mosques in Newburgh, New York, to record conversations with alleged terrorists
Jennifer Smith For Dailymail.com and Martin Gould In Gansevoort, New York, For Dailymail.com, 8 October 2018
Shahed Hussain, 62, is the owner of Prestige Limousines, the company involved in Saturday’s crash
The owner of the limousine company behind Saturday’s horror crash which killed 20 people is a former FBI informant who went undercover to record alleged terrorists in mosques after fleeing to the US from Pakistan in the 1990s where he’d been accused of murder, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Shahed Hussain, 62, is named as the owner of Prestige Limousines, aka Hasy Limos and Saratoga Luxury Limousine, in Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration documents.
In the last two years, the company has had at least four cars pulled out of service because they failed safety inspections.



The most recent was the modified 2001 Ford Excursion limousine which was carrying 17 passengers when driver Scott Lisinicchia crashed on Saturday, killing himself, all those on board and two pedestrians in the parking lot he came screeching into after running a stop sign in Schoharie, New York.
Ford has confirmed to DailyMail.com that if never manufactured the vehicles in limousine form so the one operated by Prestige had to have been modified unofficially.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that the company was now under investigation and is no longer allowed to operate.
Despite repeated attempts to make contact with Hussain, he has not commented on the tragedy and the company’s websites are now disabled.
But 2010 court documents from the terrorism trials of four men who plotted to blow up the synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down planes coming out of Newburgh airbase reveal Hussain’s past ties to the FBI.
In 2002, he convinced the bureau to take him on after being caught running a dangerous DMV scan which helped prospective drivers cheat on their tests.
Hussain arrived in the United States in 1994 after fleeing his native Pakistan where he had been arrested for murder.
After his father bribed local police to let him go, Hussain fled the country, using a British passport to leave Pakistan, enter Moscow and then travel to Mexico.
From Mexico, he entered the US through El Paso in Texas. From there, he traveled to Albany.
 
forums

He is shown in footage obtained while he worked as an informant in the DMV after being caught running a scam where he secured unqualified drivers licenses for a fee
forums


Hussain is pictured in other undercover footage showing a rocket launcher to one of four men who were convicted on terror charges. He served as an informant for the FBI after being caught running a DMV scam

Hussain then contacted an immigration lawyer who was then able to get him legal status by applying for political asylum. It enabled him to start working for the DMV where he was a translator.
There, he started a racket where he offered prospective drivers guaranteed pass-marks in their road tests or safety quizzes for a fee by ensuring they went to corrupt examiners.
In 2002, the FBI arrested him for the scam.
Rather than go to jail, he took a plea deal which involved him working as a confidential informant and he spent the next several years recording other conversations in the DMV for their benefit, incriminating his friends and colleagues.
Four years later, after filing bankruptcy and buying his son an Audi with money he claimed he’d been given by Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, he bought the hotel in Gansevoort which became the Crest Inn.
He then was put to work by the FBI to infiltrate mosques, specifically in Newburgh, New York, and look for what he described as ‘radicals’. The FBI paid him a salary of $96,000 for the work.
forums




James Cromitie (left) and David Williams (right) were both convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2010 after Hussain recorded them plotting to blow up two Bronx synagogues

forums


Onta Williams, a third suspect, was also jailed as was Laguerre Payen (not pictured). Their defense was entrapment; they said Hussain set up the plot and put it in motion by manipulating them

‘He was sent there per a number of reasons regarding other FBI investigations but I always ask him to keep his ears open if he heard individual speaking radically, including everyone has free rights to speech, but if it’s regarding possible threats, I wanted that information,’ FBI Agent Robert Fueller testified.
His work in the Newburgh mosques, particularly the Masjid al-Ikhlas led, in part to the arrests of James Comitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen.
They plotted to plant bombs at synagogues in the Bronx – Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center – and they also plotted to shoot down military planes at Stewart Air National Guard Base.
The three men were arrested when Hussain drove them to the Riverdale mosque with explosives. Authorities were waiting for them.
However valuable his undercover work was, he came under scrutiny as a witness and reliable informant during the trial when it was suggested he had turned off his recording equipment during crucial moments of conversation with the suspects.
forums

This is the motel Hussain runs in Gansevoort, New York, outside Saratoga Springs. He bought it in 2006 while working as an informant for the FBI






He also failed to disclose to the FBI that he was the beneficiary of a $500,000 trust fund in Pakistan while collecting a salary from the bureau and claiming bankruptcy.
There were also claims of entrapment and even the judge who convicted the four men ruled in her verdict that Hussain’s behavior as an informant was ‘troubling’.
He was sent there per a number of reasons regarding other FBI investigations but I always ask him to keep his ears open if he heard individual speaking radically, including everyone has free rights to speech, but if it’s regarding possible threats, I wanted that information

He met Comitie first and then together they recruited the three others. Hussain, who was known also as Shahed Malik, was not at the motel in Gansevoort on Monday.
A staff member told DailyMail.com she had never heard of Shahed Hussain, instead saying: ‘The people that run this place are called Malik. I’ve never even met them either.
‘There are certainly no limos run out of here. We’re just here to collect the money and stop the guests killing each other,’ she said.
Another person told The New York Post that the limousine company did used to operate out of the hotel’s parking lot but said it moved 18 months ago.
‘From what I’m told, they operated out of the back parking lot. They don’t operate here anymore,’ Arnie Cornett said.
He added that state police went to the hotel on Sunday night looking for Hussain to talk to him.
Cornett claimed he lives in Dubai.
Hussain’s last known address is a massive $1.8 million home set on more than three acres on a quiet cul-de-sac in prosperous Loudonville close to Albany.
A pile of trash, that a neighbor said has been there since last Monday, stands rain-soaked at the end of the drive.
The six-bedroom, 10,000 sq. ft. yellow clapboard home boasts five full and four half bathrooms and comes with a four-car garage and its own tennis court and sauna. It now sits empty with not a stick of furniture inside.
The water in the large indoor pool is discolored from stagnation.
forums


The limousine in Saturday’s crash failed a safety inspection a month ago and its driver did not have a license to carry commercial passengers

It was at this home that Hussain’s lawyers, Tabner, Ryan & Keniry, successfully served him papers earlier this year in a $32,000 suit. The law firm claimed it had been chasing him for the money for eight years.
The Loudonville neighbor said the family rented the home and he had heard that they have now moved abroad.
Records reveal that he has been sued multiple times, including once by his own lawyer.
Hussain has been involved in dozens of lawsuits in Albany County going back to 1997, records show.
In most cases he eventually paid up after dragging the matter out for years.
In 2016 Hussain was sued by local law firm Tabner, Ryan and Keniry over unpaid bills which escalated to $42,139 including interest before Hussain finally paid them off in April this year.
He paid $1,757 to the Memorial Hospital in Albany after it sued him and $35,000 to a company called Klein Candy Co after it took him to court.
Others who have sued Hussain include the Albany based Proskin Law Firm, a mini mart, the New York state liquor board and Western Union financial services
Hussain has changed the names of his businesses frequently and his companies include Wonderland Tire Co, Luxury Taxi, H A Hospitality, Martin’s Bicycle, Dream Enterprises
Hussain also has several addresses listed on the lawsuits, some of which are different to his addresses on his public records profile.
One of the many addresses the limousine company is listed to is the same Albany address Hussain gave when he was caught in his DMV scam in 2002.
The Crest Inn — which has a garish purple statue of a horse outside — gets panned online. ‘Can’t believe this place is open,’ one reviewer said on Trip Advisor, while another simply said: ‘Hazardous Inn.’
Of 29 reviewers, all but four gave the Crest the lowest grade of ‘terrible.’ Paula C. from Boston wrote: ‘this place was absolutely disgusting. horrible rooms, not clean, and cock roaches!!! no shampoo, no iron.’
The only positive review, going back to 2012 was from Joseph B of Sutton, Massachusetts, who headed his review ‘Not a Dump,’ and called the place ‘this quaint 1960’s hotel.’
Even he admitted there was no light in his bathroom. ‘I cannot believe that people are so disgusted with this place,’ he wrote.
On Monday, Governor Cuomo said Hussain had ‘no business’ putting it on the road.
‘The owner of the company had no business putting a failed vehicle on the road.I think the owner of Prestige has a lot of questions to answer,’ he said.

https://gellerreport.com/2018/10/deadly-limo-murder-arrest.html/
 
It just gets gooder & gooder here in NY.
Last week the Fed DOT informed NYS DOT that the State screwed up getting and keeping that stretchmobile off the roads. State had written it 7 times for defects and 1 State guy spotted the car with improper plates and failed to Impound it.

All in all, that's par for the course here.

Fast forward to today and I get the renewal notice for my Explorer.
I'll skip the part about Options, like would I like a new plate and of course list of charges for same. It only costs $10 per year to keep using the plate I have, and frankly I'm cheap.

Naturally even though DMV has reopened I'm encouraged to use the On Line process to protect somebody from something, possibly our Caesar.

"It's easy to renew! Do it now!

!IMPORTANT; You are not allowed to renew on line or by mail if the vehicle has been altered or stretched to increase passenger capacity, ~~~~~~~"

OK, should be good to go, with online.
Poke the information in and get a Confirmation number.
Hit the Pay button, and I get a REJECTION for Reason 500.

I LOVE NY.
State employees are so on top of things.
 
Back
Top