One Traffic-Stopping Reunion

It took motorist Paul Benitez 29 years to do it, but he finally came up with a sure-fire way to get out of a traffic ticket.

The 49-year-old Northridge man turned to the officer who had just pulled him over for having an expired license plate, looked him squarely in the eye and said in his most sincere voice: “I’m your dad.”

That’s how a Los Angeles police officer and his long-lost father were unexpectedly reunited on a busy street corner in the San Fernando Valley.

Officer Kelly Benitez, 29, was about to ticket the motorist who had first tried the old “I’m-on-my-way-to-the-DMV-

right-now” excuse.

“I said, ‘Sure,’ ” Kelly Benitez recalled Friday as the pair described their surprise Sept. 18 reunion at Tampa Avenue and Devonshire Street in Northridge.

“I looked at his eyes. Then I looked at his name,” said the police officer.

“I said, ‘Were you ever married to Debra?’ ” No, the older man said, but I dated one in high school.

Paul Benitez squinted to read the police officer’s name tag.

“I thought, ‘There are a lot of Benitezes. But maybe I can get out of this ticket,’ ” he said. So he asked the officer if his first name might be Kelly by any chance.

When the policeman said yes, the motorist’s jaw dropped.

“I said, ‘Oh, my God! I’m your dad!’ ”

Paul Benitez--who quickly drifted apart from his girlfriend Debra in 1969 and lost touch with her and their infant boy--leaped from his car and tossed his arms around his son.

Kelly Benitez gave a skeptical, half-hug back as passing motorists slowed to gawk, perhaps wondering whether they should stop to lend a hand to the police officer who seemed to be struggling to arrest a crook.

He waved the cars on. “I said, ‘Go ahead, it’s OK.’ Then we both started laughing,” Kelly Benitez recounted.

Paul Benitez followed his son back to the Devonshire Division police station and then to the officer’s home. It turns out that father and son live within five miles of each other in Northridge.

Kelly Benitez pulled out the only photograph he had of the two of them. It is a blurry snapshot that shows a young soldier holding a 4-month-old baby as the pair stand in front of a white Mustang automobile. Paul Benitez recognized the car.

“Then I knew for sure,” he said.

Kelly Benitez said he was raised by his maternal grandparents in Glendora. His widowed grandfather, Bill Levett, now lives in Duarte. Levett planned on Friday to notify his daughter, Debra--who now lives in Northern California--of the unusual reunion, Kelly Benitez said.

Both Benitezes said they periodically attempted over the years to find one another.

Paul Benitez said he felt guilt and remorse over leaving Kelly fatherless. He said he soon left Los Angeles for a tour of duty in the Army after the boy’s birth.

Kelly Benitez said he always had unanswered questions about his past. “Everybody wants to know where they’re from,” he said.

But he said he has no hard feelings toward his father for disappearing 29 years ago.

“I deal with 18- and 19-year-olds every day. I see they’re not mature. I can see how my parents could have fallen apart,” he said.

Paul Benitez, who these days is a sixth-grade teacher at Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley, acknowledged that the late 1960s were a difficult and unusual time for many young people. He said he is proud that his son grew up to be a police officer.

“His grandparents did a great job raising him,” he said.

During the past week the pair have tried to catch up on the missing 29 years. Dad is a liberal and a Democrat, son is conservative and a Republican.

“I’m working on him. We’re taking it one day at a time,” Paul Benitez said with a laugh. He said his son will be his best man when he marries his fiancee, Penny Binkiewicz.

Kelly Benitez said he has pondered the mathematical odds of a police officer pulling over the father he hasn’t seen for 29 years. “It’s eerie,” he acknowledged.

Paul Benitez said he had cursed when he saw the red police lights in his rear-view mirror. As the police officer approached his car, he had thought, “These cops are getting younger all the time.”

Asked if there’s a moral to their story, Paul Benitez laughed.

“Take care of your registration tags as soon as you can,” he joked.

“No, no,” he added. “If there’s someone out there you’re looking for, don’t give up.”

Kelly Benitez said his father has finally renewed his car registration.

His dad was never a scofflaw, he said. “It was just a little bit expired.”