A New York City man who admitted to starting a fire that severely burned a homeless man on the New York City subway has been sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Judge Lewis J. Liman sentenced 19-year-old Hiram Carrero to five and a half years in prison at a Manhattan federal court. His sentence exceeds the standard minimum requirement for arson. Carrero pleaded guilty to the charge in March for the December 2025 incident.
Prosecutors had previously requested the 19-year-old serve up to eight years in prison, saying his “heinous actions” left the man, who was sleeping at the time, critically injured and with permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement, according to reports by The Associated Press.
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When pleading guilty, Carrero admitted to intentionally setting a piece of paper on fire that harmed the man.
In seeking leniency for her client, defence lawyer Jennifer Brown noted in court papers that Carrero had a troubled past, starting when he was born prematurely with drugs in his system and abandoned by his biological parents at the hospital after his birth.
According to court records cited in a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, on Dec. 1, Carrero boarded a New York City subway car at the 34th Street – Penn Station subway stop, where he picked up a piece of paper and used it to set fire to a man asleep on the train before stepping back onto the station platform as the doors closed, leaving the victim alone inside the burning carriage.
A still taken from footage inside the train car and shared by the district attorney’s office shows the flames engulfing the victim’s legs on the platform of 42nd Street – Times Square.
In the same release, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton called Carrero’s crime “breathtaking, horrific, and unconscionable.”
“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,” he continued.
In addition to his prison sentence, Carrero was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution.
This is not the first instance of a person being set on fire on the New York City subway. In December 2024, 33-year-old Sebastián Zapeta was charged with murder and arson for allegedly setting a woman on fire inside a subway train and then watching her die after she was engulfed in flames.
In Chicago last year, a woman was set on fire while riding the subway after she got into a verbal altercation with a male passenger.
The argument escalated into a physical fight, and the man then allegedly doused the woman in an unknown liquid before setting her body alight, according to a police statement at the time of the incident.
— with files from The Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
