Metro

Sliwa’s a parent & Guardian to secret donor kids with fmr. City Councilwoman Melinda Katz

BIG DADDY: Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa grew close to 1-year-old Hunter’s mom over politics and his battles in court against the Mafia. She asked him to donate sperm in 1998 amidst her ovary surgery.

BIG DADDY: Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa grew close to 1-year-old Hunter’s mom over politics and his battles in court against the Mafia. She asked him to donate sperm in 1998 amidst her ovary surgery. (Angel Chevrestt)

(
)

Melinda Katz always saw herself as the consummate independent New York woman — a lawyer, a lawmaker for 16 years and a rising star in the Democratic Party. In 1998, when she suffered a health scare while running for Congress, she asked a former boyfriend for a sperm donation but always planned to raise any child alone.

In 2008, at age 42, then-City Councilwoman Katz gave birth to a son, Carter. She deflected questions from reporters asking her to reveal the father’s identity.

Two years later, Katz used the same batch of frozen sperm to conceive again. But 31 weeks into her pregnancy with twins, things went horribly wrong. She underwent an emergency c-section, giving birth to one stillborn baby and a boy, Hunter, as small as the palm of her hand, who was put on a respirator to fight for his life.

Panicked and alone, Katz called the only person she wanted by her side at the time — the biological father of her children.

It was time for Curtis Sliwa to be a guardian angel again.

The law-and-order legend in the red beret had been out of Katz’s life for years, but he rushed to her side.

And when Katz returned home from the hospital to care for her 3-year-old, Sliwa camped out in the neonatal intensive-care unit for three weeks praying for his struggling son.

Today, Katz and Sliwa live together with their two healthy boys in the Forest Hills, Queens home where Katz grew up. The founder of the citizens patrol Guardian Angels and the former lawmaker say they plan to marry.

Sliwa’s famous red beret now serves a dual purpose: The Roman Catholic wears it to shul every Saturday as a yarmulke and plans to raise his sons Jewish.

But the family’s happy ending has been hard won, riddled with health scares, missed connections, lost elections and divorce.

Sitting in their comfortable home, with toys strewn across the carpet, the couple talked to The Post for the first time about their unlikely union and the 19 years it took to get here.

In 1993, 27-year-old Katz mounted her first bid for state Assembly. The St. John’s Law School grad first met Sliwa, then 39, on the campaign trail.

“I don’t think he noticed me at first,” recalled Katz, now an attorney at white-shoe firm Greenberg Traurig. Sliwa’s near-mythical status as a city crime fighter and outspoken radio pundit preceded him.

In fact, a year earlier, his legend grew when he was kidnapped in a stolen taxi and shot twice in the groin by two gunmen. Critically wounded, Sliwa — a harsh critic of the mob and the Gotti clan in particular — survived by jumping out the window of the moving cab. (Federal prosecutors tried John Gotti Jr. four times in the alleged attempted hit but failed to win a conviction.)

Shortly after Katz’s 1994 election, Sliwa trekked to Albany for a rally on rent regulation — a policy Katz supported and the conservative gadfly opposed. They bumped into each other in front of the state capital at the end of a hectic day.

“I was packing up and Melinda said, ‘Hey, do you want to come by the office before you go back to the city?’ ” he recalled. Strategically, he turned her down.

“I thought, why go to her office with all these rent-control advocates who hate me,” he said. “I figured I’d take advantage of the offer, take a rain check and ask her out on a date.”

A few weeks later, Sliwa, freshly divorced from his wife of 12 years, Angels co-founder Lisa Evers, took Katz for a walk in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Park.

“The park was empty, and we had a chance to talk quietly,” he said. “We went to the West Village to have something to eat. We started seeing each other more and more after that.”

The couple dated casually for about two years. But between Katz’s obligations in Albany and rising political prospects and Sliwa’s weekends on the road expanding the reach of the Guardian Angels, the relationship never got serious. “It was catch-can,” Sliwa said. “Melinda was very high-profile, and I wasn’t interested in another long-term, high-profile relationship.”

In the contentious 1998 election for a Queens congressional seat, Katz was neck-and-neck with Anthony Weiner. Sliwa was concerned to see her disappear from the campaign trail during the most critical weeks of the race. He reached out to see what was wrong.

“I got sick during the race and had to have an ovary removed,” recalled Katz.

“I asked Curtis, ‘Do me a favor. I’m worried about my fertility. Will you make a [sperm] donation for me? He said, ‘Sure.’ It was as simple as that.”

Sliwa was the only man Katz asked for a donation. “I knew him and I trusted him,” she said.

“A lot of people do it anonymously, but I wanted to know [who the father of my children would be].” She also harvested eggs from an anonymous donor. She froze the samples for future use.

But Katz and Sliwa again drifted apart. In 2000, Sliwa married his third wife, Mary, the executive director of the Guardian Angels.

The couple had a son, Anthony, together. But he still turned to Katz for straight-talk advice as he testified against Gotti in repeated, grueling trials.

“She was the only one telling me I was going to lose,” he said. “No one tells me what they think because they’re either intimidated by me, or they don’t want to upset me. I recognized she’d tell me things no one else would tell me.”

In 2008, at age 42 and now a six-year veteran of the City Council, Katz finally got pregnant after years of failed in-vitro fertilizations. She was ready.

“I was brought up by a single dad,” she said, recalling her mother’s death in a car accident when she was 3.

“My dad had four kids and a professional life and we had a very loving upbringing. I felt like I could do the job alone.”

News of the conception by a single city lawmaker made the front page, but Katz — and Sliwa — kept their mouths shut about his role.

“Curtis and I were leading completely separate lives,” said Katz. “He wasn’t going to be involved in [my son’s] life. It wouldn’t have been fair to Carter to talk about the identity of his father.”

In 2010, Katz, now 45, decided to expand her family. Using the same batch of frozen sperm, she became pregnant with twins.

Nine weeks before her due date, she visited the hospital for a check-up that turned into an emergency c-section.

“The nurse was trying to find the second heartbeat,” she said. “All of a sudden the nurse ran out. A minute and a half later, the doctor ran in, and I just knew.” She had lost one of her babies. Panic-stricken and alone, Katz dialed Sliwa from her hospital bed.

Sliwa went to her side, intending to be supportive but not expecting the visit to change his life.

“You see [the baby] all hooked up to machines,” Sliwa recalled. “You see him struggling, tortured. I talked to him every night. I’d say, ‘Come on, Hunter, you’re not looking good. You can do it, your mom’s waiting for you at home.’ I know what it’s like to be in a hospital hooked up on machines, and this little guy was hooked up on more machines than I knew existed.”

Sliwa’s devotion overwhelmed Katz.

“It was more than I ever expected,” she said. “I had to be home with Carter, and he stayed with Hunter. I was so thankful that, for the first time in three years, I had another set of hands that was going to love my child as much as I did.”

Katz and the struggling newborn were also a refuge for Sliwa, who had separated from his third wife seven months earlier.

“The bond was with Hunter, but then I saw the suffering Melinda was going through, having lost a child,” he explained of their reunion. “I’d see her taking care of Carter, who was also my son, who I didn’t even know.”

Sliwa and Katz fell for each other all over again. Eight months ago, Sliwa moved in with Katz and their two sons (his ex has full-custody of his 7-year-old, Anthony).

For Katz, who has lived alone her entire adult life, living with the father of her children feels surreal. “It’s a big change,” she admits. “We’re just trying to catch our breath.”

Sliwa said he’s more comfortable with the setup than Katz.

“I leave the toilet seat up, and she just explodes in the bathroom, saying, ‘I’ve never lived with anyone. I can’t get used to this!’ ” laughed Sliwa. “I think, what’s the big deal?”

Raised toilet seats aside, Katz admits she’s never been happier.

“I chose to have a family alone,” she said.

“But to have the father of my children, whom I trust, and whom I love, with me — it’s really nice.

“Would we be together if Curtis didn’t spend every night with Hunter in the hospital? We’ll never know,” she said. “We’re complete opposites in many ways, but we have a great time together, and we share a very strong bond.”

They plan to marry one day. “I would elope if she would,” Sliwa said.

The union would be the realization of sorts of something Katz’s late father told her as a teen.

“If you ever get in trouble, just look for the red berets.”