ALBANY — A state appellate court has rejected Nauman Hussain’s effort to have his 2021 guilty plea reinstated following state Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch’s decision last summer to void it.
Hussain is facing 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter related to the Oct. 6, 2018, crash in which 20 people were killed as a result of what state and federal investigators have concluded was catastrophic brake failure aboard the stretch Ford Excursion.
In 2021, Hussain accepted a plea deal that would have resulted in four years probation as well as community service, but no jail time. Lynch, who took over the case following the retirement of the judge’s who approved the plea deal, last August stunned attendees at Hussain’s sentencing by announcing that he found the deal to be deficient.
Hussain has appealed Lynch’s decision in an attempt to claw back the provisions of the original plea deal struck with Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery.
The 15-page decision, released Thursday, dismissed Hussain’s petition, which was argued before the state Appellate Division’s Third Department in February. The 3-1 decision included a dissent.
Hussain’s attorneys had argued that he had completed half of the required community service called for in the plea deal. The decision stated that that service had not been “unduly burdensome” to him.
The decision clears the way for Hussain’s trial to start on May 1.
Earlier this week, Lynch rejected a motion from Hussain’s attorneys to delay the trial to collect testimony related to the FBI’s handling of Hussain’s father, Shahed Hussain, a longtime undercover informant for the bureau who worked on several counterterrorism cases.
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