Saturday, August 09, 2008
Justice is served ... with fried chicken, lasagna, potatoes, slaw, carrot cake and ice cream.
... when prosecutors offered to buy Tremayne Durham, 36, and 275 pounds, a fast-food buffet in exchange for a guilty plea that would land him behind bars likely for the rest of his life, he bit right in.
Multnomah County, Oregon, Judge Eric Bergstrom agreed to the unusual plea deal ...because it saved the expense of a trial and possible appeals. A murder trial could have cost the county about $4,000, officials said.
Durham's insatiable need for greasy food -- which included gorging on KFC and Popeye's chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, carrot cake, along with a pizza, two calzones, lasagna and ice cream -- cost Oregon taxpayers only $41.70. Bergstrom signed off on the deal, and the killer downed the food in two sittings...
Durham is a man who has problems saying no to his impulses. Convicted of rape in Manhattan in 1992 and paroled eight years later, Durham yearned to open his own business and ordered a custom-built, $18,000 ice-cream truck from an Oregon company. When he changed his mind, the company refused to give him a refund because they were already building the truck. So, according to prosecutors, Durham took a bus to Oregon and killed Adam Calbreath, 39, a former employee of the company, while looking for the owner.
Don Hons, 32, a friend of Calbreath's who attended the sentencing, said Durham deserved no favors -- but told The Oregonian newspaper ..."If a couple buckets of chicken are going to help to get a conviction, then get some biscuits to go with it." [NY Post]
