- NEW YORK: An ice cream vendor who peddled prescription painkillers from the same truck he sold frozen treats to kids, has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
The sentence was part of a plea deal struck by Louis Scala, 30, the head of a $1 million drug-trafficking ring run out of his Lickety Split truck, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy and one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance. Scala, 30, obtained the drugs with a prescription pad stolen by an accomplice from a Manhattan doctor’s office. Through a network of more than two dozen runners, he was able to get nearly 43,000 oxycodone pills between July 2009 and June 2010, with a street value of $20 apiece, prosecutors said. Scala drove his Lickety Split truck through neighborhoods in Staten Island, selling ice cream to children while inviting adults into the back to buy pills.

