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

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NEW YORK (AP) — A high school senior who admitted to setting a fire that severely burned a homeless man on the subway was sentenced Tuesday in Manhattan federal court to 5 1/2 years in prison.

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

The early morning fire on Dec. 1, 2025, came among a series of attacks with people set on fire on public transit across the U.S.

In a presentence submission, prosecutors requested he serve up to eight years in prison, saying Carrero's “heinous actions” left the man, who was sleeping at the time, critically injured and with permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement.

During his guilty plea, Carrero admitted that he intentionally ignited a piece of paper that harmed the man.

In court papers, prosecutors said Carrero tried to kill “a sleeping, homeless man by burning him alive and leaving him trapped on a moving subway car.”

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

The crime, prosecutors said, was “separated from murder by mere chance,” and they were critical of his explanation that he had been drinking and smoked marijuana that day.

In seeking leniency for her client, defense lawyer Jennifer Brown noted in court papers that he'd had a troubled past, starting when he was born prematurely with drugs in his system and was abandoned by his biological parents at the hospital after his birth.

Intellectually challenged, “things fell apart for him” when the pandemic struck in 2020, eliminating his ability to attend school, the lawyer wrote.

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