BAKER NOTABLE AF
FBI informant in terror stings owned limo in deadly crash, state source confirms
sauce: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/FBI-informant-in-terror-stings-owned-limo-in-13290392.php
Still image from a surveillance videotape shows informant, shahed Hussain, wielding an inert, inoperable shoulder fired rocket launcher to suspects in a federal terrorism sting in Albany in volving Mohammed Hossain, and Yassin Aref. TIMES UNION
The owner of the limousine that crashed in Schoharie, killing 18 people on board and two pedestrians, is a former FBI informant who testified in two high-profile terrorism cases, a state official confirmed Monday.
Shahed Hussain owns Prestige Limousine in Wilton, the official said. The limousine company is being scrutinized as federal and state investigators try to determine what caused the crash.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said the limo involved in Saturday's crash at the intersection of routes 30A and 30 failed a state Department of Transportation inspection last month and should not have been on the road.
The driver did not have a proper license to operate the vehicle, Cuomo said.
Prestige Limousine shares a business address with the Crest Inn Suites & Cottages in Wilton, a motel that is also owned by Hussain.
Hussain lived at the motel but manager Arnie Cornett on Monday said Hussain moved about 18 months ago. He still owns the motel and continues to operate the limo company.
An official said Hussain owns the business but the limo service might be operated by a son.
Hussain went by the name "Malik" when he owned a home in Loudonville and was used by the FBI in Albany to infiltrate a Central Avenue mosque. Yassin Aref, an Iraqi refugee, was imam of the mosque and the main target of the sting that began in 2003. Aref and an acquaintance, Mohammed Hussain, a Bangladeshi immigrant who owned a pizza shop, were both arrested in 2004 and accused of laundering money for Mohammed Hussain in connection with a fictitious terror plot.
They were convicted in 2006 and both sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
Shahed Hussain went to work for the FBI after being convicted of federal fraud charges in 2002 in Albany. He was taking payments from immigrants, some of whom could not read English, in a scheme to cheat on state exams to obtain driver's licenses.
In May 2009, he again surfaced as an FBI informant when four men from Newburgh were charged with conspiring to plant explosives outside the Riverdale Jewish Center and Riverdale Temple in New York City. As in the Albany case, Shahed Hussain posed as a wealthy businessman and befriended the men before implicating them in a terror plot.
The four Newburgh men, Laguerre Payen, James Cromitie, Onta Williams and David Williams, were convicted but the FBI's use of Shahed Hussain drew harsh criticism and raised entrapment questions.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records on Prestige Limousine show that the company had two drivers and three vehicles.
A total of five inspections were done of the company's vehicles over the past 25 months, and four were taken out of service as a result, which is a rate of 80 percent failure. The national average is 20 percent.
Several years ago, Shahed Hussain got in trouble with the town of Wilton for running his limo business out of the back of the hotel. Town officials asked that he store the vehicles in Latham where they had previously been parked.