A 19-year-old Harlem man was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in prison for setting fire to a sleeping homeless man aboard a subway train traveling through Midtown, federal prosecutors said.
Hiram Carrero received a 66-month prison term for the Dec. 1 attack, which authorities described as “heinous” and said left the 56-year-old victim permanently disfigured.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, surveillance video showed Carrero boarding a northbound No. 3 train at the 34th Street–Penn Station stop shortly after 3 a.m. He then set a piece of paper on fire inside the subway car.
Prosecutors said Carrero used the burning paper to ignite the sleeping victim before stepping off the train and returning to the Penn Station platform as the train continued uptown.
After the attack, Carrero remained at the station for roughly 45 minutes before leaving, sources previously told The Post.
The victim, whose legs were engulfed in flames, fled the subway car when the train arrived at the 42nd Street–Times Square station.
Disturbing footage released by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office showed the unidentified man lying on the platform near the tracks as flames covered his lap.
First responders put out the fire, which also damaged part of the subway car, officials said.
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Carrero’s victim was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical condition, having suffered significant burn injuries and leaving him with permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement.
Officials say he was saved because first responders got to him after a “mercifully short trip” from Penn Station to Times Square.
Prosecutors sought an eight-year jail sentence and argued Carrero tried to kill “a sleeping, homeless man by burning him alive and leaving him trapped on a moving subway car.”
The pyromaniac, who was a high school senior at the time of the attack, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal mischief, arson and reckless endangerment.
In March, Carrero pleaded guilty to arson and admitted he intentionally lit the piece of paper that harmed the man.
Carrero was also handed three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution.
“Setting fire to another person is a breathtaking, horrific, and unconscionable crime,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said Tuesday. “Thanks to first responders and the women and men of the NYPD and the FDNY, the victim’s life was saved, and a horrific tragedy was averted. Subway safety is front of mind for our Office, the NYPD, and our federal partners. Today’s sentence demonstrates that anyone who terrorizes New Yorkers on the subway or anywhere else will face swift justice.”
Carrero’s lawyer, Jennifer Brown, called for leniency for his client because he was abandoned by his parents at the hospital after birth when he was born prematurely with drugs in his system.
Brown claimed “things fell apart for” Carrero during the pandemic in 2020 and had “profound shame and remorse” following the attack.
With Post wires
