He's living a sexual nightmare: Says alleged oral-sex assailant is still a cop

By Dana DiFilippo, Daily News Staff Writer

JAMES HARRIS is a man tormented.

He dreams often of suffocating, choking as he wakes, unable to catch his breath. He keeps a knife tucked into his waistband almost always, a desperate defense against horrors he can easily imagine because he says he has lived them. He hesitates to get into anyone’s car, unwilling to surrender control to the person behind the wheel. He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia.

Although five years have passed since the incident that changed his life, his torment doesn’t end because his tormentor is still out there.

In uniform.

Although Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Paige was arrested and fired in 2007 for allegedly forcing Harris to perform oral sex on him in his police cruiser in Fairmount Park, Paige is back on the force, patrolling the streets of West Philadelphia. Paige dodged conviction, despite DNA evidence proving that a sexual encounter had occurred, because the judge accused Harris of playing the victim after consensual sex.

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