Darren Botticelli.jpg

Darren Bottinelli's days are numbered cooking up fabulous barbecue at his Northwest Portland food cart. His past caught up with him Wednesday.

(Jeff Manning/The Oregonian)

It had all the makings of a feel-good fable for the foodie crowd.

Darren Bottinelli had reinvented himself as a chef at 44, leaving behind the arcane world of health benefits for the grueling and largely solitary life of food cart proprietor. In less than a year, Botto Barbecue had become one of the city's most acclaimed purveyors of Texas-style brisket and ribs.

"They're the finest I've had in this city, with a thick, smoky black bark that slides off the bone like a banana peel," Willamette Week said in August.

But this tale has no Hollywood ending. Before he started making an honest living with smokeand meat, Bottinelli was a thief, a high-living West Hills swell who admitted he paid for his expensive vacations, his pricey club memberships and big restaurant bills out of the $3 million he stole from the poor and disabled clients of his former life.

Botto was more than a food cart. It was a desperate bid for redemption.

Bottinelli's day of reckoning came Wednesday before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jones. His lawyer pleaded for probation, arguing that Bottinelli needed his freedom to continue working at Botto, which was the only way he could pay restitution to his victims.

"This is a broken man facing hatred and rebuke," said Thomas Price, the public defender appointed to represent Bottinelli. "Nevertheless, he's got a plan. He's created a business with the help of