NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Two Brooklyn residents have pleaded guilty to setting one of the NYPD’s Homeless Outreach Unit vans on fire in Greenwich Village last summer, federal prosecutors say.
Corey Smith, 25, and Elaine Carberry, 37, entered the plea in court on Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a press release.
The two Brooklynites, who were arrested last August, admitted to setting the van ablaze at the northwest corner of 12th Street and University Place shortly after 4:30 a.m. on July 15 of last year, the attorney’s office said.
Surveillance footage showed them using an “ignitable liquid” to set the fire, the release said.
“As they admitted in court today, Corey Smith and Elaine Carberry committed arson, deliberately setting fire to an NYPD van, then minutes later returning to the vehicle and — one again using an accelerant — ensuring its complete destruction,” Audrey Strauss, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, said in a statement.
“Now Smith and Carberry await sentencing for their willful and wanton destruction of a law enforcement vehicle that had been used for outreach to homeless New Yorkers,” Strauss added.
The two could each face up to five years in prison, the release said. Both are scheduled to be sentenced this coming January.
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