The New York State Police (NYSP) determined that the operator, Nauman Hussain, was aware of these issues yet continued to rent the vehicle, and he was arrested and indicted on 20 counts each of criminally negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter.

The intersection of the two highways, which residents say remains hazardous due to its steep downhill approach, has been cited as a possible contributing factor despite efforts by the state to reduce the risk.

The victims' families have filed civil lawsuits against the limousine operator, the state, a Pakistani tycoon, the repair shop and the store in whose parking lot the two pedestrians were killed.

[16] The party had a noon reservation at Ommegang,[15] but that morning Axel Steenburg learned that the bus had broken down and he arranged transportation through Prestige Limousine Services, based in Gansevoort, for $1,475.

[32] NTSB head Robert Sumwalt told reporters two days after the crash that it was too early to say whether the limo had been speeding at the time; the agency was focusing on human and mechanical factors as causes.

Schoharie County Court Judge George Bartlett attempted to resolve the dispute by amending the search warrant to explicitly allow the NTSB to access the vehicle, ordering the NYSP not to move it while the parties negotiated.

"[46] In late January, Bartlett was able to broker an agreement between Mallery, the state police, Nauman Hussain's defense attorney Lee Kindlon, and the NTSB, allowing the federal investigators to photograph the limousine and take some scrapings.

[48] Joe Tacopina, newly retained as Nauman Hussain's defense attorney, suggested that Mallery's efforts to keep the federal agency from examining the vehicle was an attempt to protect a weak case.

[57] A prosecution expert's report on the causes of the crash ascribed it to "catastrophic brake failure due to the neglect of mandated commercial vehicle inspections and maintenance by company personnel".

[68] Two months later, prosecutors alleged that on several occasions after his father left the country, Nauman Hussain claimed to be Shahed when DOT inspectors contacted him about the Excursion, only admitting his true identity when they visited the business.

[73] New York records showed the vehicle's odometer had 2,058 miles (3,312 km) on it when it was bought by Albany-area Royale Limousine, whose owner would not say who had expanded it; at the time, it had nine seats, half the number it had when it crashed.

[41] The NTSB later determined[75]: 4  that the vehicle had been originally purchased by 21st Century Coachworks in Rogersville, Missouri,[76] who sectioned it, extended the frame 144 inches (370 cm) and added three bench seats in the new rear passenger compartment.

[79] State senator Simcha Felder's bill would ban the use of any stretch limousines older than 10 years and require a minimum of $2 million in liability insurance coverage, as well as changing procedures for vehicles that fail inspection.

The article noted that such an action might not have prevented Prestige from operating the limo, since, at the September 2018 inspection, the company had put a second set of plates on not only the Excursion, but onto a Lincoln Town Car that had also been ruled unserviceable earlier that year.

The centerpiece of the reform package was an outright ban on stretch limousines similar to the Excursion; the governor also called for criminal penalties, some of them felonies, for vehicle owners and inspection stations that circumvent regulations as Prestige and its inspectors allegedly did.

Schoharie town supervisor Alan Tavenner told The New York Times that he believed the intersection had become more dangerous since then,[29][b] but two days later said to reporters from Gannett News Service that the required truck detours "seem to have helped" lower crashes at the site.

In December, the newspaper decried this in an editorial: "Explain to the public exactly how releasing information already prepared by state officials and known within the DOT about this intersection is going to impede a police investigation into the crash."

Sal Ferlazzo, who had filed a civil suit against the state and Hussain over the crash for the family of victim Amanda Rivenburg, disputed that claim, saying a former DOT engineer he had retained as an expert witness said the placement of a 50-mile-per-hour (80 km/h) speed limit sign so close to the intersection was "a major design error".

[99] In late 2019, a former manager at Mavis told investigators that the shop had falsified records of repairs, including those it supposedly performed on the Excursion, in order to meet corporate sales quotas.

[100] The allegations led to two hearings before a DMV administrative law judge who fined Mavis $9,000 but declined to revoke the store's licenses to carry out inspections, proceedings not reported publicly until 2023.

Paul Davenport, who had, as attorney for Erin and Shane McGowan's families, sued Mavis, said that, even if the defense claims were true, Hussain was still at least civilly liable, since passenger safety was his responsibility.

[113] In September 2021, Hussain pleaded guilty to 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide on the expectation that he would be sentenced to five years of probation and a thousand hours of community service to include public speaking appearances, and would be banned for life from working in the transportation industry.

[115] Hussain's lawyers filed an appeal, arguing Lynch had exceeded his authority in rejecting the deal, particularly after he had already completed more than half of the thousand hours of community service he expected to be sentenced to.

Defense attorney Lee Kindlon asked for a mistrial regarding the late disclosing from the DA of the prior arrest and prosecution history of Lawrence Macera after he google-searched his name and revealed that he had pled guilty to stealing from a railroad company.

[121] At an April 2022 hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, Stefanik, whose redrawn 21st district will include Amsterdam and the crash site starting in 2023,[122] questioned FBI director Christopher A. Wray about whether Shahed Hussain's history as an informant in the terrorism case may have led the bureau to protect him from consequences for the limousine's safety violations.

[122] Governor Cuomo released a statement which expressed his heartbreak for the victims, commended first responders for helping through the night, and noted the state police were working with federal and local authorities to investigate the crash.

[138] If they did, those lawsuits might have less chance of succeeding, due to the outcome of similar actions against the state brought by the families of victims of the 2005 Ethan Allen accident, where a small tour boat on Lake George capsized in the wake of a bigger one, killing 20.

They asserted a range of affirmative defenses, such as that the plaintiffs contributed to their own deaths by failing to wear the seatbelts in the limousine, and that the crash as a whole was an act of God for which their clients could not be held liable.

[140] The McGowans were joined in suing both defendants by the mother of Matthew Coons, killed along with his girlfriend, Savannah Bursese, in October, the day after the first anniversary of the crash,[142] in Fulton County Court.

[150] In July, at the end of that year's legislative session, a bill called the Grieving Families Act was passed, in response to the limitations faced by the plaintiffs in the Schoharie crash suits, as well as some other recent incidents.