Blue Bell ice cream licker gets jail time for viral stunt
A Texas man who opened a container of Blue Bell ice cream at Walmart and licked it before placing it back in the freezer will spend 30 days in jail.
On Wednesday, D’Adrien L’Quinn Anderson was sentenced for the viral stunt, which occurred on Aug. 19 in Port Arthur. In a video he uploaded to Facebook, Anderson opens the large tub, licks the surface of the ice cream repeatedly and digs his finger into the food before eating it with his hands. “Come on, let’s go!” a friend who appears to be filming, urges him off camera.
“Happy national soft ice cream day lmao #viral,” Anderson, 24, captioned the video with 172K views.
Afterward, Anderson told 12NewsNow that he wound up paying for the vanilla ice cream, but that he regretted the stunt, in part because he lost his job. Still, Anderson said getting arrested was an extreme measure. “It was just a prank,” he said.
As part of the ruling, Anderson owes a fine of $1,000 and will pay $1,565 to Blue Bell Creameries, which replaced all the ice cream in the display case as a health precaution. He will also serve 100 hours of community service.
A spokesperson from the District Attorney’s Office in Jefferson County declined to comment when asked about the case by Yahoo Lifestyle.
However, a press release sent to Yahoo Lifestyle read: “The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office appropriately treated this incident as much more than a stunt. Anderson’s actions caused public concerns about the safety and quality of consumer products offered for public consumption, impacted Blue Bell consumer confidence and caused the company financial loss. This type of activity will not be tolerated. The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office and the Port Arthur Police Department want the public to know that such cases will be taken seriously and appropriate criminal charges will be filed.”
In the press release, the DA’s office said that Anderson “was taken immediately from the courtroom to the county jail.”
A representative of Blue Bell Creameries tells Yahoo Lifestyle, "The safety of our ice cream is our highest priority, and we take tampering with our products very seriously. We are pleased to see this matter has been resolved”.
Anderson’s prank was part of a horrifying online trend last summer in which people opened ice cream containers in stores, licked the dessert and put it back in the freezer.
In June, a young woman entered a Lufkin, Tex., Walmart and opened a half-gallon container of “Tin Roof” Blue Bell, licking it for a viral video. After police released a Facebook photo of the suspect, she was identified and her case was handled by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Blue Bell Creameries spokeswoman Jenny Van Dorf had told Yahoo Lifestyle at the time that all Tin Roof products were removed from the store due to “an abundance of caution.”
And in July, a Louisiana man named Lenise Martin III was arrested for tampering with a store container of Blue Bell ice cream in the same way.
Representatives from Walmart and the Port Arthur Police Department did not immediately return Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment.
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