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WEIGHING IN – After Patrick Cushing died in the 2018 Schoharie limo crash, his father, Kevin Cushing, received a note from a man who first met Patrick while playing dodgeball.
Patrick loved dodgeball. And he was good at it. Just six weeks before the crash that killed 31-year-old Patrick, as well as 16 other young adults celebrating a birthday, the limo driver and two bystanders, Patrick had played in the Dodgeball World Championship at Madison Square Garden as a member of the USA Dodgeball team. He ended up in urgent care needing 16 stitches after his head bounced off the ground during a game, but Kevin Cushing is forever grateful to have had the opportunity to watch his son compete at the highest level.
“He was pretty proud of those stitches,” Cushing said inside the Schoharie County Courthouse Wednesday as he awaited a verdict in the trial of Nauman Hussain, the 33-year-old operator of Prestige Limousine, who was convicted of 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter later in the day.
The letter that Cushing, now 67 and living in Saratoga County, received after his son’s death came from a man who’d met Patrick during a simple pick-up dodgeball game in Albany.
In the letter, the writer explained that he was a larger person and not very athletic. He described himself as being lonely and lacking social skills. Patrick, a naturally outgoing kid from Amsterdam, sensed the man needed some encouragement.
“You’re not going to learn by watching,” Patrick told his fellow dodgeball participant. “You need to go out there and play.”
After the match, Patrick invited the man out for beers with the team.
“It’s the one time I felt like I really belonged and that people were happy that I was there. It made a huge difference in my life going forward,” were the sentiments that the man expressed to Patrick’s father.
Those words left their mark on Kevin Cushing.
“I read that and I lost it just because [Patrick] had that kind of personality,” Cushing said.
That is to say, Patrick encouraged everyone to get off the sidelines.
His dad has reluctantly taken up that charge as a de facto spokesperson for the families of the 20 people who died in the Oct. 6, 2018, limo crash. This effort, which has already included advocacy leading to changes to limo safety laws, will now focus on continued demands for justice. This push will persist despite Wednesday’s guilty verdict.
“No matter what comes out of court today, I don’t feel like justice was served,” Cushing said Wednesday morning. Of a guilty manslaughter verdict, he said: “It’s good, but it’s not exactly what we want.”
That’s because Hussain is clearly not the only one responsible for the crash. Now that this trial has concluded, Mavis Discount Tire in Saratoga Springs, state agencies and the FBI must also be held accountable for whatever role they played in contributing to the tragedy.
Justice will be incomplete until this happens — and nothing will bring back the 20 victims.
“There’s a hole in our hearts,” Cushing said. “When they talk about closure, you know, there will be no closure. I don’t know what that’s about.”
Following this trial, Mavis should be the center of attention. As defense attorney Lee Kindlon put it this week: “The statute of limitations is running, and the Saratoga County District Attorney’s office should take note.”
In almost unbelievable testimony during the trial, the former manager of the Saratoga Springs Mavis shop, Virgil Park, admitted that his shop charged for brake work on the stretched 2001 Ford Excursion SUV that was never completed. The cause of the 2018 crash was determined to be catastrophic brake failure.
Mavis faces multiple civil suits, filed by members of the victims’ families, but so far has faced no criminal charges. The auto shop last worked on the limo in the summer of 2018, which will be five years this coming summer.
“Why hasn’t Mavis been indicted yet?” asked Mary Ashton, 63, whose son, Michael Ukaj, died during the limo crash on his 34th birthday.
Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen said she contacted the New York State Police Wednesday regarding Mavis and the shop’s involvement with the 2001 limo.
“I’ve had my office reach out to the law enforcement agency who was involved in this case to be briefed on whatever information they have,” Heggen told me. “I don’t know what they have or don’t have.”
Aside from Mavis, state and federal agencies deserve more scrutiny. Should state regulators have been more assertive in their efforts to ensure the doomed limo wasn’t placed on the road? This seems especially true after a state Department of Transportation inspector issued two out-of-service stickers on the limo in the months before the October 2018 crash. The second sticker, issued Sept. 4, 2018, came after the inspector found two of the same violations that were cited during an earlier inspection of the vehicle in March. Meanwhile, a National Transportation Safety Board report on the crash, issued in 2020, faulted state DOT and DMV, in addition to the limo company.
Another critical unanswered question is the FBI’s connection to all of this. Nauman’s father, Shahed Hussain, owned the limo company, but he has not been charged with any crimes, and he has reportedly been in Pakistan since before the crash. Shahed has also served as an FBI informant, leading many to wonder if he’s avoided prosecution as a result of his connections. Kindlon said he spoke for a few minutes with Shahed following the issuance of the verdict.
“The dad mostly sobbed,” Kindlon said, adding he believed Shahed was in Pakistan, but hadn’t asked.
Before the trial, the Times Union reported that Shahed and Nauman Hussain each sought help from the FBI in the days after the crash, but received no help from anyone at the bureau.
The families deserve to hear everything the FBI knows.
“To me, it doesn’t look right. They have not been willing to meet with us,” Cushing said of the FBI. New York’s federal legislators, including U.S. Reps Elise Stefanik and Paul Tonko, as well as U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, have been pushing. “And we get information back that’s very, very nebulous and doesn’t seem to tell us the facts. So, do I think there’s more to the story? I think there is.”
And, so, Cushing will keep pressing ahead on behalf of all the families who lost loved ones in the crash. As hard as it was to sit through the trial and hear his son’s name read along with the other victims, and as hard as it is to consciously make a point of honoring Patrick at every family gathering — at birthdays and holidays — Cushing will keep going.
In the spirit of the last line of Patrick’s bio on the USA Dodgeball website:
“My only goal in dodgeball is to make many friends through dodgeball and keep playing until I can’t anymore.”
Columnist Andrew Waite can be reached at [email protected] and at 518-417-9338. Follow him on Twitter @UpstateWaite.
