Queens Man Accused Of Setting Fire To NYPD Car: Feds

ELMHURST, QUEENS — A Queens man was arrested Thursday and accused of setting fire to an NYPD car parked on Manhattan's Upper West Side, federal prosecutors announced.

Elmhurst resident Sam Resto was charged with arson in connection with the blaze, which erupted in the early-morning hours of July 29 on West 83rd Street near Columbus Avenue.

According to newly-unsealed federal court records, a masked Resto was caught on video going up to the parked police car just before 4 a.m. and smashing one of its windows.

He doused the inside of the car with gasoline from a canister he bought earlier that evening at an Elmhurst gas station, then lit the vehicle on fire and fled.

Shortly after, police officers found an abandoned backpack in Central Park holding a white Guy Fawkes mask, a red two-gallon canister with liquid that smelled like gasoline, lighters, a hammer and dark clothing.

Fingerprints recovered from the canister were a match for Resto, according to the criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court.

Following his arrest, law enforcement agents searched Resto's workplace and found a copy of "The Anarchist's Cookbook," which federal prosecutors said indicated that he was studying how to build explosives.

Resto told the arresting officers that he had been preparing to flee and left a spray-painted message for them in his apartment, reading, "too late."

"Amid the largely peaceful demonstrations taking place across New York City, Resto committed an act of wanton violence," federal prosecutors wrote in a memo arguing for Resto to be detained pending trial. "Resto has clearly demonstrated that he is willing to violently attack police property, irrespective of whom he might hurt in the process."

Resto was previously arrested and charged with obstructing traffic during a July 15 Black Lives Matter protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.