Talk about taking a bite out of crime!
For two years, a Brooklyn thug sat in an Oregon jail awaiting trial for a coldblooded murder, and all the fat felon could think about was food – a bucket of greasy chicken, a mouthful of lasagna, a slice of pizza.
So when prosecutors offered to buy Tremayne Durham, 36, 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.
The 275-pound convicted rapist admitted he had shot a man to death over a failed business deal in June 2006.
“He’s a big guy,” Oregon prosecutor Josh Lamborn told The Post yesterday. “He is known as someone who in the jail who ate a lot.”
Durham was sentenced Wednesday to life behind bars with a chance for parole in 30 years after pleading guilty last month to aggravated murder for Adam Calbreath’s brutal slaying.
Multnomah County, Ore., Judge Eric Bergstrom agreed to the unusual plea deal – which included buckets of fried chicken, pizza and lasagna – 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 – the first a few weeks ago, and the second on Wednesday.
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 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 he was glad the judge made the food deal in order to get the killer locked up.
“If a couple buckets of chicken are going to help to get a conviction, then get some biscuits to go with it,” he said.
Durham was also married Wednesday in a civil ceremony at the Portland courthouse to Vanessa Davis, 48, who’s on probation for witness-tampering in the case, prosecutors said.
County officials said Durham is “an antisocial psychopath” and was far from a model inmate during his two years in the Multnomah County jail.
He faked a suicide, choked an inmate and threatened to hijack a jail van in a bid to escape, prosecutors said.
At the sentencing, The Oregonian reported, Calbreath’s father addressed the courtroom during an emotional victim-impact statement.
“Put this animal where he belongs,” Michael Calbreath said.
The father also thanked the judge and all involved in the case for bringing his family closure.
Then he turned to Durham.
“You hear that?” he asked Durham, who sat stone-faced in a blue prison uniform and ankle chains. “I called you an animal.”
After Calbreath’s remarks, Durham read an apology.
“I’m sorry for the loss I have caused to you,” he said.