A New York City high school senior was taken into custody Friday on a federal arson charge after authorities said he set a fire that severely burned a sleeping subway passenger.
Hiram Carrero, 18, did not have to enter a plea during his arraignment in Manhattan federal court. The early Monday morning blaze marks the latest in a series of disturbing incidents involving people being set on fire on public transit across the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni ordered Carrero held without bail, 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.
According to a criminal complaint, Carrero lit a piece of paper and dropped it near a 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 onto the platform at the next stop, 42nd Street–Times Square, with flames engulfing his legs and torso, according to surveillance images included in the complaint. Police officers quickly put out the fire, and paramedics took the man to a hospital, where he remained in critical condition.
“The victim very well could have died in this case,” prosecutor Cameron Molis said.
Police arrested Carrero on Thursday in Harlem, where his lawyer said he lives with his disabled mother and serves as her primary caregiver, taking her to medical appointments. She attended his arraignment but declined to comment to reporters.
The complaint states that Carrero briefly stepped onto the train, lit the fire, and fled the station while the passenger lay burning. He then boarded a bus and went home.
If convicted, Carrero faces a minimum of seven years in prison. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4, though prosecutors may bypass it if they present the case to a grand jury and obtain an indictment before then.
Carrero’s attorney, Jennifer Brown, acknowledged that “there is no disagreement that the allegations are extremely serious.”
However, she argued he is a “very young man with no (criminal) record and a mother willing to take him in.”
Lehrburger initially approved Carrero’s release to home confinement with electronic monitoring, a requirement for a mental health evaluation, and mandatory drug testing. Caproni overruled that decision during an after-hours hearing on Friday.
Brown urged the judge to uphold the release, referencing news reports suggesting investigators had looked into whether the passenger had set himself on fire.
The case landed in federal court partly because the New York Arson and Explosives Task Force—run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with NYPD and FDNY—handled the investigation. Carrero does not face state charges.
Investigators identified Carrero by comparing surveillance footage with body-worn camera video from October, when police stopped him for riding his bicycle through a red light. Brown said he was delivering for Uber Eats at the time.
Both images showed a man with the same distinctive mustache, a hat with white lettering across the front, a backpack, and a gray hooded sweatshirt, according to the complaint.
Just last month, federal prosecutors in Chicago charged a man with dousing a woman in gasoline, chasing her through a train car, and setting her on fire. In December 2024, a woman asleep on a stopped subway train in Brooklyn died after a stranger set her clothing on fire.
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