A Manhattan federal judge handed down a sentence of five and a half years in prison Tuesday to a 19-year-old high school senior who admitted to setting a homeless man on fire while the victim slept on a New York City subway car.
Judge Lewis J. Liman sentenced Hiram Carrero to a term exceeding the legally required minimum for arson. Carrero had entered a guilty plea to the arson charge back in March.
The attack took place in the early morning hours of December 1, 2024, and was part of a troubling wave of incidents involving people being set on fire on public transit systems throughout the United States.
Before sentencing, prosecutors asked the court to impose up to eight years behind bars. They described Carrero’s actions as “heinous,” pointing out that the sleeping victim suffered life-threatening injuries and was left with extensive permanent scarring and disfigurement.
When Carrero entered his guilty plea, he acknowledged that he deliberately lit a piece of paper on fire, which caused the man’s injuries.
Court documents filed by prosecutors painted a chilling picture of the attack, stating that Carrero attempted to kill “a sleeping, homeless man by burning him alive and leaving him trapped on a moving subway car.”
Prosecutors noted that the victim survived only because emergency responders reached him quickly during what they called a “mercifully short trip” between Penn Station at 34th Street and Times Square. They described the crime as “separated from murder by mere chance” and rejected Carrero’s claim that he had been drinking and using marijuana that day as a meaningful explanation.
Defense attorney Jennifer Brown argued for a lighter sentence, citing her client’s deeply troubled background. According to court papers, Carrero was born prematurely with drugs in his system and was abandoned by his biological parents at the hospital. Brown noted that he is intellectually challenged and that the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 worsened his situation by cutting off his access to school.
“Words are inadequate to express the profound shame and remorse that Hiram feels,” Brown wrote in court documents.
