Man Is Charged With Arson in Fire at an L.G.B.T.Q. Club in Brooklyn

“I had just gotten done with the cocktail training and the other bartender was like, ‘Oh, Tyler, go downstairs and get some beer and I’ll show you where we restock it’,” Mx. Glenn said.

It was while Mx. Glenn was downstairs that, according to the prosecutors’ narrative of events, Mr. Lhota entered the club and set it on fire. When they came back upstairs, they noticed that the air was much foggier than it had been just before.

“My thought process was like, ‘Oh, the smoke machine — they really turned it up for the party that’s about to happen,’” Mx. Glenn said. “I got up there and it’s hard to breathe. I turn and there’s just a giant fire.” They said their injuries, which included burns on their nose and lips, had begun to heal.

A witness who was across the street when the fire began described seeing a man matching Mr. Lhota’s description running off after rushing out a side door of the building, the complaint says. A nearby security camera also captured him fleeing and other cameras tracked him taking a roundabout route home, the complaint says.

Several days later, the complaint says, Mr. Lhota was arrested by the New York City police after a woman called 911 and accused him of assaulting her. She subsequently identified him as the arsonist shown in the security camera footage, the complaint says.

Mr. Lhota faces charges of strangulation, a felony, and misdemeanor assault and harassment in state court in Brooklyn in connection with the episode, court records show. A Legal Aid Society lawyer representing him in that case could not immediately be reached for comment.

On his LinkedIn page, Mr. Lhota identifies himself as a software developer and a graduate of Hunter College High School in Manhattan and Brown University, academic affiliations confirmed through online sources.