Federal Officials Accuse N.Y. County of Blocking Investigation into Limo Crash That Killed 20
The limousine accident that killed 20 people in an upstate New York town in October was over in a few terrible moments: The packed, speeding vehicle flew through an intersection, slammed into a parked car and immediately smashed into a shallow gully.
But the search for answers is taking far longer, as local and federal authorities have found themselves in a standoff over access to the vehicle and other potentially important evidence.
That conflict flared on Thursday as the National Transportation Safety Board released a letter accusing the Schoharie County district attorney, Susan J. Mallery, of blocking its investigative team at almost every turn, including access to the limousine.
“We are gravely concerned that your lack of responsiveness to our requests has seriously impeded our abilities to carry out our congressionally-mandated duties to properly complete this safety investigation and potentially prevent similar accidents in the future,” wrote the board’s general counsel, Kathleen Silbaugh.
The letter, dated Dec. 14, was first reported by WRGB in Albany.
More than two months after the crash, federal authorities said they still have not been allowed to look inside the wrecked limo — a modified 2001 Ford Excursion — in order to inspect its braking systems, which had failed state inspections, or to examine modifications that increased the car’s occupancy.
They said they have also been denied photographs and video of the vehicle, which careened down a country highway in Schoharie, west of Albany, on Oct. 6.
All 17 passengers — including four sisters and a newlywed couple — were killed by the impact, along with two pedestrians and the limousine’s driver, who was later found not to have the proper license. Many of the victims were in their 20s and 30s.
Despite the loss of life and global media coverage of the accident, federal pleas for access to the evidence — Ms. Silbaugh also made a more measured request in mid-October — have been met with unusual resistance by New York officials.
In her October letter to the county, Ms. Silbaugh suggested that local officials had several concerns about federal involvement in the investigation. Those worries included federal officials releasing information about their investigation as the state criminal probe continued, and N.T.S.B. investigators being called as witnesses in a criminal trial. Ms. Silbaugh wrote that both those concerns were misplaced.
On Thursday, the State Police said that their investigation of the accident was ongoing and forwarded questions about the N.T.S.B.’s letter to Schoharie County officials. Ms. Mallery did not respond to requests for comment; her office said she was in meetings.
In their more recent letter, federal officials seem exasperated by local intransigence, adding that their pleas repeatedly went unacknowledged. “What we have been told is that your schedule is full,” Ms. Silbaugh wrote, “and you are too busy to respond.”
The seeming impasse in the investigation is in stark contrast to the violence of the accident and the flurry of developments in its immediate aftermath, including the revelation that the owner of the limousine company that rented the vehicle, Prestige Limousine, was Shahed Hussain, a former F.B.I. informant with a criminal record who has been living in Pakistan.
Shortly after the accident, Mr. Hussain’s son Nauman Hussain, the operator of the company, was charged with criminally negligent homicide. He pleaded not guilty.
Ms. Mallery’s office is in charge of prosecuting Nauman Hussain. Because of that, Ms. Silbaugh said, federal authorities have allowed Schoharie County first access to the evidence.
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