New York — A New York City high school student was jailed Friday on federal arson charges after authorities said he started a fire that left a sleeping subway passenger severely burned.
Hiram Carrero, 18, was not required to enter a plea during his trial in Manhattan federal court. The fire early Monday morning is the latest in a series of incidents People lit by fire On public transportation throughout the United States
U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni detained Carrero, citing the “heinousness of the crime,” after prosecutors appealed Judge Robert W. Lerberger’s decision to release him and place him at home under the supervision of his mother.
“It’s hard for me to understand why an 18-year-old in high school would go out at 3 a.m. and set people on fire,” Caproni said.
Carrero is accused in a criminal complaint of igniting a piece of paper and dropping it near the 56-year-old passenger around 3 a.m. Monday on the northbound 3 train at 34th Street-Penn Station near Madison Square Garden and Macy’s flagship store in midtown Manhattan.
The passenger stumbled to the platform at the next stop, 42nd Street-Times Square, with his legs and torso engulfed in flames, according to surveillance images included in Carrero’s criminal complaint. Police officers quickly extinguished the flames and the passenger was taken to the hospital, where his condition was described as critical.
“The victim in this case could have died,” prosecutor Cameron Mullis said.
Carrero was arrested Thursday in Harlem, where his attorney said he lives with his disabled mother and serves as her primary caregiver, bringing her to medical appointments. She attended his summons but refused to speak to reporters.
According to the complaint, Carrero boarded the train only briefly, lit the fire and then fled the station while the passenger was burning. Then he took the bus to his house.
Carrero faces at least seven years in prison if convicted. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4, though it will be canceled if prosecutors take the case to a grand jury and obtain an indictment by then.
Jennifer Brown, Carrero’s attorney, said there was “no dispute that the allegations are very serious.”
But she said Carreiro “is a very young man with no (criminal) record and a mother who is ready to take him in.”
Prior to Caproni’s intervention, Lerberger agreed to release Carrero to home confinement with electronic monitoring and the requirement that he undergo a mental health evaluation and undergo drug testing.
Caproni reversed the decision at a hearing hours later Friday.
In trying to convince her to support Carrero’s release, Brown cited news reports that investigators were looking into whether the passenger had set himself on fire.
Carrero’s case was brought to federal court in part because it was investigated by a federal task force, the New York Arson and Explosives Task Force, which is run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in cooperation with the city’s police and fire departments. He does not face charges in state court.
According to the complaint, investigators zeroed in on Carrero by comparing photos from the incident to body-worn camera footage recorded in October when police stopped him for riding his bike through a red light. Brown said he was delivering for Uber Eats at the time.
Carrero and the man investigators were looking for had the same distinctive mustache, a hat with white letters on the front, a backpack and a gray hooded sweatshirt in both sets of photos, the complaint said.
Last month, federal prosecutors in Chicago charged a man with dousing a woman with gasoline, chasing her across a train car, then chasing her Set fire to it. In December 2024, a woman is sleeping on a stopped subway train in Brooklyn She was killed when a stranger set her clothes on fire.