NYC teen arsonist sentenced to 5 years in prison for setting sleeping homeless man on fire on subway

A 19-year-old arsonist was sentenced Tuesday to over five years in jail for setting a sleeping homeless man on fire on board a subway car that was passing through Midtown.Hiram Carrero was handed the 66-month imprisonment after he was charged for the “heinous” attack that left his 56-year-old victim with permanent disfigurement in the early morning attack on Dec.1.Carrero, of Harlem, was captured on surveillance footage boarding the No.

3 train at the 34th Street – Penn Station station just after 3 a.m.and lit a piece of paper on fire, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said Tuesday.The firebug used the flaming sheet to ignite his sleeping victim on fire before he hopped off the train back onto the Penn Station platform as the train continued northbound.Carrero lingered at the station for about 45 minutes after the attack before taking off, sources previously told The Post. The burning man, with his legs engulfed in flames, rushed out of the car as the train rolled into the 42nd Street and Times Square station.The unidentified victim lay on the station’s platform near the tracks as the fire enveloped his lap, according to disturbing footage shared by the Manhattan US Attorney.

First responders extinguished the flames, and a portion of the subway car was damaged by the fire.Carrero’s victim was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical condition, having suffered significant burn injuries and leaving him with permanent extensive scarring and disfigurement.Officials say he was saved because first responders got to him after a “mercifully short trip” from Penn Station to Times Square.Prosecutors sought an eight-year jail sentence and argued Carrero tried to kill “a sleeping, homeless man by burning him alive and leaving him trapped on a moving subway car.”The pyromaniac, who was a high school senior at the time of the attack, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal...