A stripper torched her East Harlem apartment in a fit of rage over a missing cellphone — leaving her roommate near death from burns and smoke inhalation, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
Manuela Blanca Lopez, 21, confessed to cops that she deliberately set fire to her own bed at about 1 a.m. Friday and then fled the eighth-floor Dewitt Clinton Houses apartment she shared with the victim, Eddie Perez, 24, and two other strippers.
Thursday night, Lopez angrily blamed Perez for several of missing items, including the phone, sources said.
When Perez brushed her off and went to sleep, Lopez trashed the apartment, which is in his name.
She stuck a knife into a couch and told another roommate, “I’m so mad that I’m going to burn this place down,” sources said.
Twenty minutes later, sources said, the roommate saw smoke coming out of Lopez’s room. Everybody fled except Perez, who stayed behind trying to put out the fire, sources said.
In the lobby, Lopez swore the fire was an accident, but one roommate told cops about the threats and she was detained, sources said.
She eventually confessed to setting fire to a household sponge and leaving it to burn on her bed, sources said. Charges are pending.
Two distraught neighbors said they saw somebody holding a baby boy out of an eighth-floor window to shield the child from inhaling smoke.
“I saw the baby and I was so scared,” said one neighbor who declined to be identified. “It was freezing outside, and he had to hold the baby out to get air. The baby was crying, and the man was screaming for help.”
Firefighters extinguished the flames within 45 minutes, sources said.
Sources said Perez suffered severe burns, smoke inhalation and a cut when he tried to smash a window to get air.
Neighbors said Perez was a longtime Dewitt Clinton resident and that his roommates had arrived only a few weeks ago.
“I feel bad,” said one neighbor. “He seems like a nice guy. He’s not a bad neighbor at all. Could it really be over a phone? What was going on there?”
Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley