ARSON MURDER RAP
A murder rap against a mentally ill career criminal was a sad but welcome relief for the grieving family of an MTA worker killed in an arson fire at a Harlem subway station, they said on Monday.
Nathaniel Avinger (inset), 50, was arrested on Friday and charged with setting the March 27 blaze that killed motorman Garrett Goble, 36, on a 2 train — giving the dead man’s family their first taste of justice.
“We were elated,” Vicky Goble, the victim’s mother, told The Post. “We’re hoping that everything goes right so that we can have a conviction and put this person away. It’s an early Christmas gift.”
Garrett Goble, a father of two boys, was helping straphangers get to safety at the Central Park North110th Street station after Avinger allegedly set a shopping cart on fire in a train car and fled before Goble collapsed and died.
“It gave us hope,” Goble’s widow, Delilah, said of the arrest during a memorial service Monday at the Flatbush Avenue/Brooklyn College station, near Goble’s childhood home in Flatlands.
“Even though it’s a first step, we’ve been waiting for this, and it came just in time, because my son’s birthday is tomorrow, and he wants justice for his dad, just like we do,” she said.
The couple had two children, Hunter, 1, and Noah, 11.
“He was the life of the party,” Delilah said of her husband. “He was funny, the life of the party. He was a great father, very active, keeping the boys busy. We just miss him.”
The MTA announced that it would memorialize Goble with a plaque at the Brooklyn station and would establish a scholarship in his name — while showering his two boys with presents.
“I speak for the entire transit family when I say March 27 was one of the worst and darkest days in our history,” interim NYC Transit President Sarah Feinberg said on Monday.
“We’re going to put something outside the crew room, so when conductors and operators are walking in and out, they’re reminded of him,” she said. “You’re not going to walk into the Flatbush station without seeing and hearing Garrett Goble.”
Police said Avinger was questioned about the fire days after the incident but was released for lack of evidence.
But on Wednesday he was picked up for allegedly groping a female MTA employee and charged with sexual abuse and forcible touching. After questioning him in that case, police also charged him with arson and murder in the March 27 fire.
“This case is now in the hands of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office,” NYPD Transit Chief Kathleen O’Reilly said on Monday. “We expect that we will see the same powerful and horrific elements in this case, that we have a heroic transit worker taken from his family in a horrific crime and defendant who clearly had no regard for human life.”
Avinger is due back in Manhattan court on Wednesday.
He has a lengthy criminal record that includes a dozen arrests on assault and robbery charges, according to police. Records show he was sentenced to state prison on a thirddegree-robbery conviction in 2013 and was released in July 2015.