Cops arrest serial subway ‘sucker’
A serial transit perv who has been repeatedly spotted touching himself while sucking his thumb in the city’s subway system has finally been nabbed.
James Hunt — one of the worst in the dirty-dozen transit deviants profiled by The Post in March — was chased down and Tasered after resisting arrest around 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the Court Street Station in Brooklyn, police said.
The 41-year-old creep, who is well-known to police, ran from cops after being spotted masturbating outside the MTA booth at the station.
Cops said they also connected the perv to another incident from June 11, when a 44-year-old woman walked into the station and saw Hunt masturbating on the mezzanine. The woman even snapped a picture of the gross act.
The head of Transit’s Special Victims Division, Sgt. Chris O’Connell, said combatting serial subway sex-crime offenders has been an “uphill battle” for police in the city.
“We are seeing them constantly going back and doing the same thing over,” O’Connell said.
Saturday’s incident brings Hunt’s subway sex-crimes tally to more than 28 in the last decade.
O’Connell added that these “gross, disgusting experiences” are especially troubling when the victims are underage.
“It’s terrifying for anyone, especially younger victims,” he said. “No one should have to deal with something like this going back and forth from school or work.”
Hunt faces charges of resisting arrest and public lewdness from Saturday’s arrest and another public lewdness count from the incident in June.
The NYPD is struggling to deal with turnstile justice because the most common subway sex crimes — including forcible touching, persistent sexual abuse and public lewdness — are misdemeanors, police sources said.
Cops on the front lines of the fight against the sex-crimes scourge say they have been pushing for a lifetime ban for serial offenders, but that the proposal has struggled to gain traction amid arguments that perverts have a right to public transit.
Cops currently have no authority to bust known offenders for simply being in the system, and have to wait for the fiends to strike again before moving in.
The subway creeps “wake up in the morning for one purpose, and that is to commit these crimes,” one high-ranking NYPD insider said of the worst offenders.
Another official said, “I’ve had [the pervs] tell me, ‘I think she likes it.’ ”
Along with Hunt on The Post’s dirty-dozen list, there was James Peterson, 46. He’s known for exposing himself and rubbing against the rears of women, sources said. Peterson has a total of 22 arrests, half of them for transit sex crimes, sources said.
He shares a modus operandi with Ronald Dudley, 40, who has been arrested nine times, including for seven sex crimes. He was busted most recently on Valentine’s Day for allegedly rubbing against a 9year-old girl aboard the 7 train.
Then there’s Roger Reid, 58. His record of 32 arrests includes 20 sex-crime busts, mostly for forcing his hands down commuters’ pants.