New York officials said a man set fire to a spa with an employee

There was a man accused of arson in a fire he blames for starting a spa in New York this summer that killed an employee who was inside, according to federal prosecutors.

Mario Lucas, a 46-year-old resident of Guatemala, entered a spa in Manhattan on June 19, 2022 and began talking to an employee, according to an Oct. 7 release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

About 10 minutes later, when the employee went into the utility room, the man took a plastic container of liquid from his backpack, poured it across the lobby and set it on fire with a lighter, the release said.

As the fire spreads through the lobby of the spa – and the employee is still in the back – Lucas

tried to escape, but the front door wouldn’t open, the release said.

A crowd formed outside the spa and a bystander used a stool to force open the door, allowing the man to escape. About a minute later, the employee also came out.

Lucas, who appeared to be badly burned, fled the scene, but police caught him a few blocks away and placed him in an ambulance, the release said.

The arson “wasn’t just a crime against a single victim at a single business, but a violent attack that put an entire community and all first responders at risk,” New York Police Commissioner Kichant Sewell said in a release.

Lucas was charged by complaint and arrested on August 8, and his one-count indictment was unsealed on Thursday, October 6. He is charged with arson causing bodily harm to another person, which carries a minimum sentence of seven years to, according to officials, 40 years in prison.

McClatchy News was unable to reach Lucas’ attorney.

Arson arrests are reviewed for prosecution in Manhattan has increased in recent yearsaccording to the information of the district prosecutor’s office.

Separately, New York has significantly reduced the number of criminal cases it prosecutes gross violations of fire safety“raising concerns about the rigor of the fire prevention strategy,” the New York Times reported.