An ex-con was ordered held without bail Saturday in the death of a hero subway operator who died helping riders escape a smoky fire on a train in Harlem.
Nathaniel Avinger, 49, faces a second-degree murder charge after he admitted starting a March 27 blaze inside a moving No. 2 train piloted by doomed train operator Garrett Goble, court papers say.
The suspect told detectives that he used a Bic lighter to set a “small fire” even as he insisted he wasn’t responsible for the conductor’s death.
“(He) admitted to being on the train, having a black Bic lighter, and setting paper on fire in a small fire, but not the big fire,” Detective Christopher Siciliano of the NYPD’s 28th Precinct said in court papers.
Avinger, who has mental health issues and has been in and out of homeless shelters, was riding on the No. 2 train when the fire broke out in the second car.
Goble, 36, a married father of two, helped guide terrified riders — including Avinger — to safety in the station at 110th St. and Lenox Ave. But the selfless train operator tragically collapsed and died in the smoke-filled subway tunnel.
Avinger was a suspect in the conductor’s death from the early days of the investigation. But authorities said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, so Avinger remained free for months.
Last week, he was arrested on charges he groped a female subway conductor in Brooklyn. That’s when he made the damaging admission about the deadly Harlem fire outlined in court papers.
Avinger’s rap sheet includes arrests for two felonies and 13 misdemeanors, including an attempted assault in 2008 and robbery in 2011. The outcomes of those cases were not immediately clear.
