‘My Son Cries and Cries’: Mom of Man Accused of Burning His Sex Toys and Sparking a Three-Alarm, Three House Fire Says He’s Severely Depressed

He’s a sad firestarter.The mother of the Staten Island man charged for setting his sex toys on fire – leading to a three-alarm fire – claims he’s been down in the dumps for years. She added that she hopes that, after the raging fireball that damaged many neighbors’ homes, he can now get the psychiatric help he needs.“I need to talk to him. I’m his mother,” a forlorn Maritza Torres told the Sun in an exclusive interview on Friday. It was two days after her 37-year-old son, Harry Torres, who shares the Burgher Avenue abode with her, was hauled away in a robe and later hit with arson charges for dousing sex toys with lighter fluid outside the home and burning them in a blaze that spread uncontrollably and nearly burned to the ground one neighbor’s home. In the end, three neighbors’ homes were severely damaged as well as two parked cars. One of them is a classic Corvette.Harry Torres is arrested in his bathrobe. Instagram / SILive“I started the fire,” Harry allegedly copped to investigators on Wednesday, according to the criminal complaint. “I was in the backyard at my house and I lit two sex toys on fire.”Harry, according to the complaints, told investigators that he set the sex toys on fire out of a compulsion to purge them of his DNA. Shortly after firefighters had gained control of the flames, a handcuffed Harry wearing a blue bathrobe was walked off by cops. Officials say they started battling the blaze shortly after 3 p.m., when flames leaped into the neighbors’ property.“My son cry and cry,” Maritza said. “He has the headache and stomach [aches].”FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief David Simms confirmed that firefighters got to the blaze three minutes after they were called, but the fire still required six hoses and about an hour’s time before it was subdued. The blaze damaged three homes. CitizenNo one was seriously harmed in the fires. One of Maritza Torres’s neighbors, a woman in her 80s, fortunately escaped with her life when she dashed out of her home. But she would watch in agony as her home took the brunt of the fire damage, gutting its structure, officials said.The “suspicious” fire was especially formidable given the potent combo of both dry vegetation scattered in the yard and gusts of winds that whipped Staten Island that afternoon. All of it totaled Maritza Torres’s rear deck. The fire also scorched the second story of the rear of her house, before spreading.Harry was arraigned on Thursday in Staten Island Criminal Court, where he pleaded not guilty to two counts of arson, reckless endangerment, and criminal mischief. He was freed on supervised release with an order of protection barring him from having contact with any of his neighbor victims. The next court date is June 17.Firefighters gather at the site of the blazes. FDNYBoth of scorched cars involved in the incident — a Toyota pickup and a vintage Corvette — belonged to the ex-husband of Rusil Velasquez. She told the Sun that the cars and her backyard endured irreparable damage. “The Toyota and the other Corvette classic car — they’re now garbage,” the 36-year-old hairstylist said. “He has to throw away everything.”She recalled how windy that Wednesday was and how at one point she peeked out to check on the cars and “everything was burning.” Ever since Ms. Velasquez moved on the block four years ago she said she never spoke with Harry. But she had spoken with his mother, Maritza Torres, and learned that her son occupied the attic. “I have no idea what he was trying to do in his backyard,” she said in frustration. His mother pegs her son’s crestfallen state as starting back a decade ago. That marks the time, Maritza Torres said, when her divorced husband was stricken with cognitive degeneration issues and was rehoused to a senior facility. “My son needs a lot of attention because he confuses everything,” the 73-year-old woman emphasized of her Harry. “He feels depression, depression. He feels for his father. He loved his father. “And he needs help.”

‘My Son Cries and Cries’: Mom of Man Accused of Burning His Sex Toys and Sparking a Three-Alarm, Three House Fire Says He’s Severely Depressed

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