Updated 12:01 PM
The bus was traveling from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut to Chinatown early Saturday morning when it crashed on the New York State Thruway, killing 15.
Two state officials tell the Associated Press that Ophadell Williams should not have been behind the wheel. His license had been suspended in 1995 because he failed to respond to two tickets.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has launched a state investigation into how Williams was able to hold a valid commercial drivers’ license.
Williams also served two years in prison for manslaughter and has convictions for theft.
He was released from the hospital Sunday night and has not been charged in the bus crash.
Investigators zeroed in on Williams when witnesses and passengers contradicted his claim that the bus was sideswiped by a tractor trailer. Now they're trying to retrace Williams' steps before he got behind the wheel.
"We want to see if the driver had a room, for example, at the casino,” said National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Christopher hart. “We want to see if he used a room card. We'll be exploring all the sources of information we can because one of the areas we routinely gather information on after any accident like this is what was the driver doing the 72 hours prior to the accident."
The bus veered off the road Saturday morning, toppled on its side and slid into a highway sign that sliced through the top of the bus.
Fourteen died that day. A 70-year-old man died of his injuries yesterday morning, raising the death toll to 15.
About a half-dozen remain hospitalized in critical condition.
An unidentified patient at Jacobi Medical Center has been reunited with his family.
Officials at St. Barnabas say their final crash patient will likely go home today.
Meanwhile, the investigation is just beginning into another fatal Chinatown bus crash.
A bus heading from Chinatown to Philadelphia crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike last night – killing two people. It happened around 9 p.m. at Exit 9 in East Brunswick.
Police say the private charter went up onto the grass, hit an overpass support and then an embankment.
The driver, Wei Wang – a 50-year-old Taiwanese national from Forest Hills, Queens – was thrown through the windshield and killed.
Another man, Troy Nguyen, 20, of Royersford, PA died at the hospital.
Forty other passengers were also hospitalized.
It's still unclear what caused the crash.
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