Global Courant 2023-05-17 05:02:21
A jury began deliberations on Tuesday in the trial of a limousine company manager charged with deadly indifference to safety rules ahead of a crash that killed 20 people.
Nauman Hussain is charged with negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter in connection with the 2018 wreck of a SUV limousine in Schoharie, New York — one of the deadliest U.S. traffic wrecks in the past two decades.
Jurors deliberated just under two hours on Tuesday before heading home for the evening. Their talks were to continue Wednesday morning.
LIMOUSINE COMPANY DRIVER IS STANDING FOR LAW FOR DEATH CRASH IN USTATE NEW YORK
Earlier Tuesday, relatives of the dead wiped away tears during Special Counsel Frederick Rench’s closing argument.
He said Hussain deliberately failed to follow the maintenance instructions for the 2001 Ford Excursion. The stretch SUV was packed with revelers as it hurtled down a hill, went off the road and hit a parked car and trees before stopping in a stream bed.
Prosecutors say faulty brakes failed to stop the heavy limousine. Rench said that if Hussain had performed routine state vehicle inspections as required, they would have revealed brake defects and prevented the wreck.
Jury deliberations have begun in the trial of Nauman Hussain, a limousine company owner whose negligence, prosecutors say, led to a 2018 crash in upstate New York that killed 20 people. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)
Hussain’s attorney, Lee Kindlon, told jurors his client was not to blame. He blamed Mavis Discount Tires, a repair shop Hussain routinely used.
“Hussain was satisfied that he had repaired the braking system, that the brakes were in good and working condition,” Kindlon told the jurors. “The people could not prove that Nauman Hussain knew or should have known that Mavis falsified repair, maintenance and safety inspections.”
NEW YORK LIMO MANAGER GOES ON TRIAL 5 YEARS AFTER FATAL ACCIDENT THAT LEADS 20
Lawyers for Mavis, who is not on trial in the criminal case but is being sued by the victims’ families, deny that the repair shop is guilty.
Seventeen passengers, the driver and two bystanders died in the crash outside a country store in a village west of Albany.
Witnesses called to testify at the trial included a former Mavis executive, people who witnessed the wreckage, and a State Department of Transportation inspector who flagged the SUV-style limousine for violations long before the crash . The defense called no witnesses.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The trial was held after a judge rejected a plea deal last fall that would have spared Hussain jail time.
