DIRTY DOZEN
Creepiest pervs of NY subways
As if the subways aren’t already creepy enough, serial perverts are plaguing the rails. And it seems cops are powerless to stop them — because no matter how often the deviants are ar re s ted, they just keep returning. Leading the pack, NYPD insiders say, is James Hunt (right), who has 78 busts — 32 for transit sex crimes.
The filthiest thing about the city subway system actually might not be its train cars — at least when these prolific perverts are riding the rails.
A dirty dozen transit deviants are driving subway sex crimes with their refusal to stay away, arrest after arrest, leaving the cops who are tasked with policing the pervs frustrated by the lack of a more permanent solution.
The creeps “wake up in the morning for one purpose, and that is to commit these crimes,” said one high-ranking NYPD insider of the worst offenders.
“I’ve had [the pervs] tell me, ‘I think she likes it.’ ”
Among the rogues’ gallery of grinders, gropers and public masturbators, the most persistent is James Hunt, who has an alleged penchant for touching himself while sucking his thumb in front of riders. He has a total of 78 arrests, 32 of them for transit sex crimes, according to sources.
Hunt, 41, has been busted for 26 subway sex crimes within the past decade alone — and, as a second highranking source put it, “That’s just how many times he’s been caught.”
Then there’s James Peterson, 46, known for exposing himself and rubbing against the rear ends of unsuspecting women, sources said. He has been arrested 22 times, half of them for transit sex crimes, according to the sources.
Peterson shares an alleged modus operandi with Ronald Dudley, 40, who has been arrested nine times, including for seven transit sex crimes — most recently on Valentine’s Day for allegedly rubbing against a 9-year-old girl aboard the 7 train.
There’s also Roger Reid, 58, whose record of 32 total arrests — including 20 sex-crimes busts, mostly for forcing his hands down commuters’ pants — is so infamous that he was featured in a January 2016 Post story about the NYPD’s push to ban transit recidivists from the system for life.
Reid is one of five Level 3 sex offenders among the dirty dozen. Level 3 means they are the most likely to be repeat offenders. Four others are Level 2 sex offenders, the next highest-risk group.
Sources say the NYPD is dealing with turnstile justice because the most common subway sex crimes — including forcible touching, persistent sexual abuse and public lewdness — are misdemeanors, meaning
the creeps are often quickly cut loose to strike again.
Police sources on the front lines of the fight against the sex-crimes scourge say that they have been pushing for a lifetime ban for serial offenders for years but that the proposal has struggled to gain traction amid arguments that even perverts have a right to public transit.
With no authority to arrest known perverts simply for being in the subway system, cops say they are caught in the frustrating position of having to wait for the fiends to strike again before moving in.
“It’s a challenge we face,” a third source said. “We spot people we know are going to do this and we have to follow them until they spot another victim. We have to wait until they victimize someone else.”
The second source added, “Why wouldn’t the sanctions go up? Why do we have to have a woman or a kid traumatized for life [because] we couldn’t step in earlier?”
If nothing else, the repeat offenders’ refusal to stay away from the transit system keeps cops in good practice, teaching them exactly what to watch out for.
“The individual who’s looking to commit the crime is looking at who’s around, letting trains go by,” said the first source, a department veteran of more than 10 years. “They look for that very precise time where they feel nobody is watching and they’re going to be able to commit the crime.
“They all like the express trains because it’s a longer train ride” be- tween stops, so there’s less opportunity for victims to escape during an assault, according to the source.
Also, the criminals “prefer the front car . . . It’s crowded in the front,” the source said.
The NYPD’s plainclothes perv patrols often work in teams of three, according to sources. When an officer believes a crime is going down, one of the undercover cops will pull the victim off the train at the next stop for an interview while their partners stay on the suspect, the source explained.
If the victim offers a strong enough narrative to press charges, the cop on the platform will signal or radio his two partners to cuff the suspect.
“They’re creeps. They prey on the innocent. They prey on women,” said the source — adding that the miscreants aren’t always the usual suspects.
“These are family men, too. They have wives, they have kids,” the source said of some fiends. “They say, ‘Please don’t tell my wife.’ ”
Even with subway sex crimes in decline overall, the faces of suspects often look the same.
“It’s a very small group of perpetrators that drive the crime on our subways,” said the second source.
NYPD spokesman Phil Walzak said, “This disgusting behavior must not be tolerated, and the NYPD Transit Special Victims Squad relentlessly pursues these recidivist perpetrators to get them off the rails and into jail.”