Schoharie limo crash: Auto shop manager says brake work was falsified

ALBANY – Workers at a Mavis Discount Tire shop falsified records to make it look as if they completed brake work on a limousine before it crashed and killed 20 in Schoharie last year, when in actuality the work was never performed, according to the shop's former manager.

Virgil Park, who managed Mavis' Saratoga Springs location until he was terminated in February, told prosecutors last month that he purchased a brake master cylinder on May 4, 2018, for the 2001 Ford Excursion stretch limo.

But the part, which converts force from the driver's foot into hydraulic pressure on the brakes, was never installed despite an invoice saying it was.

Park claims the part was returned to Advance Auto Parts eight days later, according to a letter filed in court last week by Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery, whose office conducted the interview.

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On Oct. 6, 2018, the same stretch limo blew through an intersection before striking a parked vehicle in the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Country Store, about 30 miles west of Albany. The crash killed the driver, two bystanders and 17 passengers who were en route to a Cooperstown brewery to celebrate a birthday.

"Although the invoice from May 11, 2018, indicates that this part was installed, Mr. Parks (sic) informed us that an employee, Chikezie Okoro, told him that the part was not installed," Mallery wrote in the letter, which was first reported by the Times Union of Albany.

Mavis issued a statement late Wednesday calling many of the statements attributed to Park "inaccurate or misleading," though the company's statement did not get into specifics.

The company has maintained it is not responsible for the wreck.

"Our thoughts and condolences remain with the victims of this tragic accident," the company's statement reads. "Mavis did not cause the accident, however, and bears no legal responsibility for it."

Limo company operator facing trial

Mallery's letter was filed last week with County Court Judge George Bartlett, who is overseeing the upcoming criminal trial of Nauman Hussain, 29, the operator of limo owner Prestige Limousine, who is facing 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter.

Hussain is accused of keeping the limousine on the road despite it failing two inspections and being ordered out of service by the state Department of Transportation, which handles inspections of limos that can seat 11 or more.

An expert hired by investigators had previously determined the cause of the wreck to be "catastrophic brake failure," according to court records. The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet determined an official cause.

Neither Park nor Okoro could immediately be located for comment Wednesday. 

Mallery's Oct. 7 letter was sent to Hussain's attorney under court rules requiring prosecutors to share potentially exonerating evidence to the defense.

According to Mallery's letter, Park claimed the Mavis shop would falsify invoices — swapping out certain services for the work actually performed — in order to try and hit sales quotas established by the company's corporate office.

That includes June 2018 invoices that purported to show brake labor for the limousine involved in the Oct. 6, 2018 crash when no brake work was actually performed. 

Park also told prosecutors he did not perform a DMV inspection — the type performed on normal passenger vehicles, not high-capacity limos — of the vehicle but provided a certification card for it.

At the time of the wreck, the limo had a DMV inspection sticker but not the required DOT one.

Defense says Mavis deserves blame

A day after receiving Mallery's letter, Hussain's attorneys Joseph Tacopina and Chad Seigel sent their own letter to Bartlett, claiming Mavis' actions are to blame for the wreck.

"Despite billing for the preceding services, Mavis never performed them," Hussain's attorneys wrote. "Stated otherwise, Mavis's fraudulent conduct — not anything undertaken by defendant Nauman Hussain — was the true legal cause of the accident."

In its statement, Mavis pushed back against Hussain and his attorneys, noting the limo traveled more than 1,000 miles after the shop serviced it and Hussain is accused of scraping off the DOT sticker meant to ensure it stayed off the road.

"Mr. Hussain and his criminal defense lawyers are attempting to falsely attack Mavis in a desperate diversion tactic to shift responsibility away from Mr. Hussain, where it solely belongs," according to the company's statement.

Mallery did not immediately return a call to her office Wednesday morning.

Hussain is set to stand trial in March.

So far, at least three victims' families have filed suit against Mavis, faulting the auto shop chain's Saratoga Springs location for inspecting the limousine when it should have been subject to the more-rigorous, biannual DOT inspection.

“This is about holding people accountable who played a role in this tragic and preventable accident, and we feel that Mavis did play a role," said Paul Davenport, an Albany-based attorney representing the estates of Shane and Erin McGowan, said in an interview last month.

JCAMPBELL1@gannett.com

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