Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York said she will fight for answers from the Feds about a limousine company responsible for an upstate crash that killed 20.
The owner of the limousine company was an FBI informant, and Stefanik is demanding answers.
"In the Oct. 6, 2018 disaster in Schoharie, N.Y., near Albany, a limo, packed with young partygoers en route to a brewery for a surprise birthday, careened into a parked car before barreling into a ravine. The early afternoon accident wiped out several young couples and a family of four sisters," reports New York Post.
GOP Representative Demanding Answers
It was the deadliest US transportation accident in a decade.
The accident led to a 2020 limo safety bill in Albany.
"One family, it wiped out an entire generation of their children. It’s incredibly, incredibly tragic," said Stefanik. "Talking to these families. … They are not partisan at all. They just want answers."
"After the crash, it emerged the limo company was awash in violations. The doomed vehicle lacked both federal and state certifications. The car had been retrofitted with 12 feet of extra carriage added to the middle. It had failed numerous spot roadside inspections and has been ordered off the road by the Department of Transportation. Its brakes failed on the day it crashed. Limo driver Scott Lisinicchia, who was killed in the accident, had twice been busted on drug charges in the previous eight years," reports New York Post.
"It was later revealed that Shahed Hussain, 66, the owner of Prestige Limousine Chauffeur Service, was an FBI informant since 2002 — after he was nabbed for running a scam to help drivers cheat on DMV tests," according to New York Post. "In 2003 he helped the agency convict an Albany Imam in a sting operation to disrupt a scheme to sell a surface-to-air missile to terrorists in Pakistan. In 2009 he was an informant in a terrorist bomb plot targeting two synagogues in Riverdale and an Air National Guard base."
"The FBI makes it clear to informants that any time there’s any run-in with any type of law enforcement or a government agency, they have to be forthcoming to the FBI," said Stefanik. "So the FBI, I believe, knew about all of these … run-ins with the law and they did nothing. So they have culpability in this deadly limousine crash."
"They mishandled the source," said Stefanik. "It led to the death of 20 upstate New Yorkers."
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Source: New York Post
