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SOME NEWS ON A SAD STORY: The man who rented out the limousine involved in one of the state’s deadliest recent vehicle crashes was sentenced Wednesday to between five and 15 years in prison, capping a yearslong legal battle that has captivated upstate New York.
I traveled to Schoharie last week for the sentencing of Nauman Hussain and wrote about it for The Wall Street Journal. The 33-year-old was convicted this month of 20 counts of manslaughter for his role in the October 2018 crash that killed 20 people on a country road southwest of Albany. The victims include 17 friends who chartered the limousine for a birthday party, the driver and two people who were struck in the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Store + Café.
The incident wrought a swath of grief in and around this community and rounds of finger-pointing among Hussain, state agencies and federal authorities. It has also attracted the interest of a top member of Congress who is pushing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to release details about its ties to the defendant’s father, Shahed Hussain, who was a confidential informant for the FBI in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
For more than an hour in court Wednesday morning, relatives of the people who died in the crash told Lynch about the impact the crash has had on their lives. Mothers spoke of never meeting grandchildren. Siblings described the traits of their loved ones.
Several people spoke about ongoing nightmares and counseling nearly five years after the crash. They said they would attend parole hearings and push for Hussain to stay in jail for the full 15 years. The defendant sat about 30 feet away, dressed in prison garb, looking downward. He declined a chance to speak.
“This trial, which was a long time in coming, was an incredibly difficult journey,” Kevin Cushing, whose son Patrick Cushing was one of the victims, said in court. “It’s greed. Simply greed. It makes me and my family sick to know that a $2,000 brake repair would have avoided this tragedy.”
SOME PERSONAL NEWS: I’ll be spending August and September in Germany as part of a reporter exchange program.
I was selected as an Arthur F. Burns fellow by the International Center for Journalists, a non-profit organization. Twenty fellows are chosen each year —10 from Germany and 10 from the U.S. and Canada — for a program that lasts a little over two months. I’ll spend a week in Washington, D.C. for orientation, then two weeks in Berlin for an intensive language training before I head to Munich.
Each fellow is given a host outlet; I will be placed at the Süddeutsche Zeitung, on its economics desk. I took two semesters of German language classes at our local community college a few years back, but I only have a toddler’s grasp of the language. Most of my time will be spent reporting for the WSJ — but the stories will be about Germany rather than New York and its neighbors.
I’m excited about this, and a tad nervous. While I have traveled around the U.S. and have been to Europe a half-dozen times, it has always been on short stays. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than two consecutive weeks outside the state of New York. (I was born here, I was raised here, I went to college here and have always worked here.) I type that with neither pride nor shame — I have found good work, good people, good times and have made a good home here. But it will also be good to broaden my perspective. Hopefully, that will make things even richer when I return.
THE QUESTION: What must I do while in Munich? Or Berlin?
Have an answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: This was a tricky one! The Mason-Dixon line was surveyed well before the Civil War to settle a territorial dispute involving Delaware. It makes a sharp turn before it hits New Jersey, so technically, no parts of the Garden State are below it.