By Juan Ortega
Sun-Sentinel
DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — He followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
At home, he recently became a father, to a daughter now 7 months old.
During a viewing service in Boca Raton on Wednesday, dozens mourned DEA Special Agent Paul Andrew Teresi, 44, who lived near Boca Raton in unincorporated Palm Beach County. He was killed Sunday in an Interstate 95 crash in Deerfield Beach.
A Mass is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at St. Joan of Arc Church, at 370 SW Third St., in Boca Raton.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., Teresi served with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for 13 years, including as a sex crimes detective, recalled his friend, Detective Bart Arnold from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
“He was determined, loyal to his colleagues and dependable,” Arnold said.
Among Teresi’s accomplishments was arresting a West Palm Beach man in 1997 and charging him with sexually abusing four boys in the trailer park where he lived.
In 2002, Teresi helped handle a case in which 14 West Palm Beach children were found living in squalor.
The children’s adoptive parents later agreed to a plea deal in which child-neglect charges would be dropped if they complied with a plan designed by child-welfare authorities.
Of helping the public, “you knew this is something he would be doing,” Arnold said.
Teresi resigned from the Sheriff’s Office in 2002 and became a special agent with the DEA, handling drug investigations in the Miami area.
His father, Paul Teresi, had once served as special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in Fort Lauderdale.
As Teresi was exiting the interstate onto Southwest 10th Street shortly before 5 a.m., a westbound Ford Expedition struck Teresi’s Chevy Trailblazer, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.
Teresi was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Expedition, Derick James, 36, suffered minor injuries.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office is investigating.
Aside from his father, Teresi is survived by his wife, Candice Teresi; his 7-month-old daughter, Lillianna Teresi; his stepmother, Toni Teresi; his mother, Lucy Curley, and sister, Lucy Lange-Gappens.
Instead of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the DEA Survivor’s Benefit Fund, at 2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 659, Washington, D.C., or Broken Star Fund, at 3228 Gun Club Road, in West Palm Beach. Call 561-688-3658.
Copyright 2009 Sun-Sentinel