2 More Held in Arson Death of Subway Clerk

Police arrested two more suspects Friday in the fiery death of a subway clerk, and a teenager already in custody was jailed without bail after a prosecutor described how the victim begged for his life.

Officials believe that four people took part in the botched Nov. 26 robbery that fatally burned Harry Kaufman at a subway token booth. Two youths sprayed flammable liquid into the booth and ignited it, blowing the booth apart. Kaufman, 50, died Sunday.

“He was pleading with them, ‘Don’t light it, don’t light it,’ ” Assistant Dist. Atty. Kenneth Taub said at a hearing for James Irons, 18, who was arrested Thursday and charged with second-degree murder.

Criminal Court Judge Charles Heffernan denied bail.

Irons, told police that he was the lookout. His statement led to the arrests of Thomas Malik, 18, and Vincent Ellerby, 17, near their homes in Brooklyn. Both were charged with murder.

Ellerby has admitted squirting the liquid around the token booth and under the door, Assistant Chief Raymond Abruzzi said at an evening news conference. More details were expected today when the two are arraigned.

Irons’ lawyer declined to comment, and no further details on the suspects were immediately available.

Authorities initially speculated that the token-booth bombers might have been imitating the film “Money Train,” starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, which depicts a pyromaniac squirting gas into a token booth and lighting it. In the movie, the clerks escape unharmed.

But investigators downplayed the movie angle Friday. One police source said when detectives asked Irons about it, “He just gave a dumb look, like he didn’t even know what we were talking about.”

Transit officials say there were at least nine such attacks in the five years before the movie came out last month, and police have been investigating several similar cases. None of the clerks in those attacks was injured.