A homeless man was ordered held without bail this morning for back-to-back heinous, blowtorch attacks on his estranged wife and the boss who’d recently fired him from an auto body shop in Inwood.
The first attack, in broad daylight 8 a.m. this morning on Ninth Avenue near West 207th Street, burned 38-year-old Cathy Zappata lips, eyelids, face, cheeks and neck, a prosecutor told a Manhattan judge in asking successfully that crazed Carlos Diaz, 35, stay caged.
Diaz had believed that Zappata was cheating on him, cops said — and so sprayed her face with lighter fluid and used the blowtorch to ignite her, authorities said.
“In essence, judge, her entire head was set on fire with an accelerant and a blow torch,” Assistant District Attorney Scott Leet said of the monstrous assault.
The wife, who was not named, remains in serious but critical condition at the burn unit at Harlem Hospital.
“He had no money, no job. He was sleeping in his van. He’d had enough,” a law enforcement source said.
Diaz walked away from his still-burning wife and immediately hunted down his ex-boss in the nearby garage, at 3966 10th Avenue, the prosecutor said.
The boss, who was also not named, was doused in gasoline and bludgeoned in the head by Diaz — but managed to wrestle free even as Diaz tried to ignite him, the prosecutor said.
“The facts of this case scream that he be remanded,” the prosecutor told Manhattan Supreme Court justice Matthew Sciarrino, who set Diaz’s next date for tomorrow, with the expectation that he will be indicted by a grand jury by day’s end.
Diaz ultimately turned himself in to police has given a full police confession to his evil intention: “to burn them both alive,” one source said. He was expressionless as he faced the judge.
He has been charged by prosecutors with first degree assault and attempted murder.