Limo owner ordered to submit to DNA testing

The owner of a limousine involved in a fatal crash in Schoharie, New York, has been ordered to “submit to the taking of saliva and buccal cell samples from his body.”

Prosecutors requested the samples so they can determine whether he handled a “removed or peeled-off DOT sticker” that had been placed on the limousine’s windshield when it was ordered out of service by the New York Department of Transportation. The sticker was found in the limo owner’s personal automobile by police investigators after the accident.

Nauman Hussain, 28, manager of Prestige Limousine of Saratoga Springs, has pleaded not guilty to 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter and 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide for the crash that killed 17 passengers, two pedestrians in a parking lot and the driver of the limousine.

Multiple brake defects at all four wheels, resulting in “catastrophic failure,” have been blamed for the crash of the stretched 2001 Ford Excursion limousine last Oct. 6. The limousine sped through a stop sign and went off the road, through a parking lot and into a wooded area. New York State Police reported that the limo had twice been ordered out of service last year during roadside inspections.

Police found no tire skid marks on the highway, where the speed limit was 55 mph. The limousine had been hired to carry a birthday party to a brewery.

After the crash, state police found that the company had obtained inspection stickers without submitting the vehicle to required New York Department of Transportation semi-annual inspections.

The “peeled-off DOT sticker” was tested by the New Your State Police laboratory and found to hold the DNA of a male. The prosecutor asked the Schoharie County Court to order Hussain to submit to DNA testing, arguing, “There is a clear indication that ordering the defendant to supply a sample of his saliva will yield substantial probative evidence.”

Hussain’s defense attorney argued that “the alleged removal of the DOT sticker would have in no way, shape or form, constituted a direct cause of the accident… the out of service sticker has no relevance to causation of the accident.”

Judge George R. Bartlett III ruled in favor of the prosecution motion. “If the People are able to establish that defendant removed a sticker that not only told him but would have warned repair shops, the limousine driver and passengers that the limousine was not permitted on the road, such evidence is clearly relevant to elements of recklessness and criminal negligence, elements of the charged crimes.”

Buccal cells, found on the lining inside the cheeks, are collected with a swab and, like saliva, can provide DNA for testing and possible matching with other samples.

Hussain’s trial is scheduled to begin in January.

 

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