Arrested for lighting B’klyn nightclub blaze

A Brooklyn man who set an LGBTQ nightclub on fire using a lighter and a can of gasoline has been arrested — thanks to a roommate assaulted by the arsonist two days after the blaze, prosecutors said.

John Lhota, 24, lived just half a mile from Rash, the queer-friendly Bushwick nightclub he’s accused of setting ablaze on April 3, a source confirmed to the Daily News. The accused firebug is a relative of former MTA chairman and Republican candidate for mayor Joe Lhota, a source confirmed. John Lhota is the son of Joe Lhota’s cousin.

John Lhota, a graduate of Brown University who attended Hunter College High School, was caught on surveillance video filling up a red canister at a gas station about 15 minutes before the attack, prosecutors said.

He allegedly went straight from the gas station to Rash, where FDNY officials say he spent minutes “systematically” pouring gasoline on the floor.

“The footage shows him splashing the gasoline around a passageway and an adjacent customer lounge area while a bartender and another person go about their business nearby, appearing unaware of the nature of Lhota’s actions,” wrote Craig Gundersen, an FDNY Fire Marshal in a complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Lhota, who works in web development, unsuccessfully tried to set the place on fire by tossing a lit cigarette onto the gasoline, prosecutors said. He then took a lighter to the gas, causing an explosion caught on surveillance cameras.

The fire singed two workers at the club, sending them to the hospital, and also displaced tenants living above the bar at 941 Willoughby Ave.

Two days later, Lhota was arrested on separate charges in Brooklyn for allegedly choking a woman in her apartment, prosecutors said. She later identified him in security footage to the feds.

A source confirmed the woman was his roommate. Federal prosecutors wrote she had lived with Lhota for four months.

Lhota was hit with a federal arson charge and faces up to 40 years in prison. The diminutive Lhota wore a loose green long sleeve t-shirt, glasses and blue jeans to his court appearance, where he was ordered held without bail at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.

Both workers injured in the fire are now out of the hospital, the bar’s co-owners said.