NEW YORK, United States — A 19-year-old high school senior who admitted setting a fire that seriously injured a homeless man on a subway train was sentenced on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, to five and a half years in prison.
Judge Lewis J. Liman of Manhattan federal court imposed the sentence on Hiram Carrero, who pleaded guilty in March to arson.
The sentence was longer than the mandatory minimum required for the offence.
The fire occurred in the early hours of December 1, 2025, during a period in which several people were set on fire on public transit systems across the United States.
During his guilty plea, Carrero admitted that he intentionally set fire to a piece of paper, injuring a man who had been asleep on the train.
Prosecutors had asked that Carrero receive a sentence of up to eight years, saying in a presentence filing that his “heinous actions” had left the victim critically injured and with lasting physical harm.
In court papers, prosecutors said the man survived because emergency workers were able to reach him soon after the train travelled from Penn Station at 34th Street to Times Square.
They described the offence as “separated from murder by mere chance” and rejected Carrero’s explanation that he had been drinking and had smoked marijuana that day.
Carrero’s lawyer, Jennifer Brown, asked the court for leniency, citing his difficult upbringing and intellectual challenges.
In court papers, Brown said Carrero was born prematurely with drugs in his system and was abandoned by his biological parents at the hospital.
Brown also wrote that the disruption caused by the pandemic in 2020 had harmed Carrero’s ability to attend school.
“Words are inadequate to express the profound shame and remorse that Hiram feels,” Brown said.
