Odd News

Ice cream seller accused of dealing drugs

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-03-21 13:23

NEW YORK -?A New York man has been arrested for allegedly selling illegal prescription drugs from his ice cream truck, making more than $1 million in a year, prosecutors said.

Louis Scala sold ice cream to children from his "Lickity Split" truck and would allegedly make stops at prearranged spots where customers knew they could buy pills, according to the New York Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

Scala, 40, is accused of selling more than 40,000 prescription oxycodone pills from his ice cream truck in the borough of Staten Island borough and heading up a 30-person drug ring that included more than two dozen runners to fill fake prescriptions, prosecutors said.

Another suspect, Nancy Wilkins, is accused of using her position as an assistant at a Manhattan orthopedic office to steal blank prescription pads and allegedly sell them for $100 a page, prosecutors said.

The phony prescriptions would be filled by runners who would be paid in cash or in pills, they said.

The ring earned more than $1 million in the past year, sometimes charging up to $20 for a single pill.

"This narcotics organization was as predatory as any I have ever seen -- in its structure and distribution practices," Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.

"Most of the individuals recruited to fill bogus prescriptions were among society's most vulnerable -- young, financially desperate and addicted to oxycodone," she said.