High school senior gets over 5 years in prison for setting homeless man on fire on NYC subway

A high school senior who admitted to setting a subway fire that severely burned a homeless man was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.

Judge Lewis J. Liman gave Hiram Carrero, 19, a sentence longer than the mandatory minimum for arson after the teen pleaded guilty to the charge in March.

The fire, which broke out in the early morning hours of December 1, 2025, was among a series of attacks. people were set on fire On public transportation across the USA

In their submission, prosecutors asked that Carrero be sentenced to up to eight years in prison, saying his “heinous actions” caused serious injuries and permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement to the man who was sleeping at the time.

While confessing his crime, Carrero admitted to deliberately firing a piece of paper that injured the man.

In court documents, prosecutors said Carrero tried to kill “a sleeping homeless man by burning him alive and trapping him in a moving subway car.”

They said the man’s life was saved because emergency personnel quickly reached him after a “thankfully short trip” from Penn Station on 34th Street to Times Square.

Prosecutors said the crime was “separated from murder by chance” and criticized his explanation that he had smoked marijuana that day.

While defense attorney Jennifer Brown asked for leniency for her client, she noted in court documents that he had a troubled past, starting when he was born prematurely with drugs in his system and abandoned by his biological parents in the hospital after birth.

The lawyer wrote that “everything went wrong” for this person, who had intellectual difficulties with the emergence of the epidemic in 2020 and the disappearance of the opportunity to go to school.

“Words are inadequate to express the deep shame and regret that Hiram feels,” Brown said.

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