High school student, 18, charged with arson in fire that burned New York City subway passenger

A subway approaches an above ground station in the Brooklyn borough of New York with the New York City skyline in the background, June 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

NEW YORK — A New York City high school senior was jailed Friday on a federal arson charge after authorities say he set a fire that severely burned a sleeping subway passenger.

Hiram Carrero, 18, was not required to enter a plea during his arraignment in Manhattan federal court. The fire early Monday morning is the latest in a string of incidents of people being lit ablaze on public transit across the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni ordered Carrero detained, citing the “heinousness of the crime,” after prosecutors appealed Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger’s decision to release him to home confinement under his mother’s supervision.

“It’s hard for me to understand why an 18-year-old young man who’s in high school is out at 3 o’clock in the morning setting 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 a northbound 3 train at the 34th Street—Penn Station stop near Madison Square Garden and Macy’s flagship store in midtown Manhattan.

The passenger stumbled to the platform at the next station, 42nd Street—Times Square, with his legs and torso on fire, according to surveillance images included in Carrero’s criminal complaint. Police officers quickly extinguished the flames and the passenger was taken to a hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

“The victim very well could have died in this case,” prosecutor Cameron Molis said.

Carrero was arrested Thursday in Harlem, where his lawyer said he lives with his disabled mother and acts as her primary caregiver, bringing her to medical appointments. She attended his arraignment but declined to speak to reporters.

According to the complaint, Carrero stepped onto the train only briefly, lit the fire and then fled the station while the passenger lay burning. He then took a bus home.

Carrero faces at least seven years in prison if he’s convicted. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4, though that will be cancelled if prosecutors bring the case to a grand jury and secure an indictment by then.

Carrero’s lawyer, Jennifer Brown, said there was “no disagreement that the allegations are extremely serious.”

But, she said, Carrero is a “very young man with no (criminal) record and a mother willing to take him in.”

Before Caproni stepped in, Lehrburger had agreed to release Carrero to home confinement with electronic monitoring and a requirement that he undergo a mental health evaluation and submit to drug testing.

Caproni reversed the decision at an after-hours hearing on Friday.

Brown, attempting to convince her to uphold Carrero’s release, cited news reports that investigators had been looking into whether the passenger had lit himself on fire.

Carrero’s case went to federal court in part because it was investigated by a federal task force, the New York Arson and Explosives Task Force that is run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in conjunction with the city’s police and fire departments. He is not facing charges in state court.

According to the complaint, investigators zeroed in on Carrero by comparing images from the incident to body-worn camera footage recorded in October when police stopped him for riding his bicycle through a red light. Brown said he was delivering for Uber Eats at the time.

Carrero and the man investigators were searching for had the same distinctive mustache, hat with white lettering across the front, backpack and grey hooded sweatshirt in both sets of images, the complaint said.

Last month, federal prosecutors in Chicago charged a man with pouring gasoline on a woman, chased her through a train car and setting her on fire. In December 2024, a woman asleep a stopped subway train in Brooklyn was killed when a stranger set her clothing on fire.

Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press