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ALBANY — Attorneys for Nauman Hussain have filed a request to appeal to the state’s highest court for the reinstatement of his no-jail plea deal in the 11th hour before he stands trial for the 2018 Schoharie limo crash that killed 20 people.
Lee Kindlon, an attorney for Hussain, in a court filing on Friday requested permission from the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court in Albany to appeal its negative decision from a day earlier to the Court of Appeals.
The Appellate Division in a 4-1 opinion issued Thursday found state Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch acted within his discretion in August when he tossed out the plea agreement accepted almost a year earlier by now retired Supreme Court Justice George Bartlett.
The request to appeal the decision argues, “It was error to hold that the actions of respondent, after coming in at the last minute and without warning, casting aside the years of work needed to come to an agreement that all parties—the people, the defendant and the court—found acceptable, was within his discretion.”
The Appellate Division in its decision dismissed the Article 78 proceeding filed by Hussain’s attorneys in November seeking to overturn Lynch’s decision and have reinstated Hussain’s plea deal allowing him to plead guilty to 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide with a sentence of five years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service.
Now the Appellate Division must decide whether to allow its own decision to be appealed to the highest court. The filing further seeks an immediate stay of the criminal proceedings against Hussain until a decision can be rendered by the Appeals Court. He is scheduled to stand trial with jury selection to begin on May 1.
Angela Kelley, an attorney representing Lynch, in an opposition response filed Friday afternoon argued against the request to appeal the court’s decision or delay the trial slated to start in less than two weeks in connection to the deadly limo crash that occurred over four years ago.
“There is a compelling need for finality of this important case for all concerned, including the defendant, the community, and the families of the victims,” Kelley wrote.
Furthermore, Kelley noted the Appellate Division last year declined a request by Hussain’s attorneys to halt the criminal case, which is now ready to proceed with 1,500 potential jurors summoned, witnesses subpoenaed and the trial court calendar cleared for a month-and-a-half in anticipation of a lengthy proceeding.
“A stay at this juncture would be catastrophic to the prompt and fair administration of justice for all concerned. Respondent strenuously asserts the interests of justice would be thwarted by any delay of the underlying case, especially when considering an overwhelming majority of this court has already determined petitioner’s arguments lack merit,” Kelley wrote.
The Appellate Division had not issued any orders related to the request to appeal as of Friday afternoon. It’s unclear if or when any hearings on the request will be scheduled before the impending trial.
This is the second effort within the last week by Hussain’s attorneys to delay the proceedings. Lynch on Monday rejected a motion by Hussain’s attorneys to delay the trial and seek the recently completed internal FBI probe into the agency’s ties to the limo crash investigation and to Hussain’s father, Shahed, the owner of the limo company and a former bureau informant.
Only Hussain has been charged in connection to the crash with 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide and 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter. His father was in Pakistan at the time of the incident and has not returned to the United States.
Hussain, the operator of Prestige Limousine, is accused of failing to properly maintain the brakes of the 2001 Ford Excursion stretch limo. He also allegedly removed a state Department of Transportation out-of-service sticker from the vehicle ordering it off the road.
All 17 passengers, the driver, and two bystanders in the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Country Store were killed at the intersection of Routes 30 and 30A in Schoharie when the limo suffered catastrophic brake failure on Oct. 6, 2018.
Reach Ashley Onyon at [email protected] or @AshleyOnyon on Twitter.
