Police said a 47-year-old male — who was on parole and had 131 prior arrests on his record — was charged for setting a homeless man on fire while the victim was sleeping in New York City’s Penn Station, the New York Daily News reported.
Officers with the Amtrak Police Department arrested Damon Johnson on Tuesday and charged him with attempted murder and assault for the previous day’s attack, which left a 37-year-old man with second-degree burns on his arm and back, police told the Daily News.
‘Begins wailing and convulsing and scrambled to his feet with his jacket on fire.’
Johnson pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court where he was ordered held without bail, the paper said.
Amtrak police also arrested a 33-year-old female Wednesday and charged her with assault in connection with the attack, police told the Daily News.
However, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the female, the paper said, adding that police sources indicated that while she was with Johnson at the time the fire was started, it’s unclear if she committed a crime at the scene.
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The Daily News, citing police, said the victim was sleeping near a West 33rd Street entrance to Penn Station’s Amtrak rotunda near Eighth Avenue when three people approached him — and one of them set fire to the man’s clothes around 8:30 p.m.
During Johnson’s arraignment, Callum Mullan — a prosecutor with the DA’s office — described video of the attack, which he said shows Johnson leaning over the victim, who moments later “begins wailing and convulsing and scrambled to his feet with his jacket on fire,” the paper said.
After the attack, the three men fled into the station, the Daily News said.
First responders extinguished the flames and rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell’s burn unit, the paper said.
Mullan added that Johnson at the time of the attack was on parole for a 2018 robbery, in which he slashed a student’s face before taking cash from his pockets, the Daily News reported. Mullan said the victim needed more than 100 stitches, according to the paper.
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