Port St. Lucie man ate stolen ice cream sandwich he kept in pants, police say

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Ice cream sandwiches typically are not stored in your pants, but that is where a Port St. Lucie man appears to have kept a stolen one.

The man, 32-year-old Robert Silvia, was arrested Oct. 12 after an assistant manager at a Family Dollar saw a man take "an ice cream sandwich from the front of his pants" and start eating it, a recently released Fort Pierce police report states.

The assistant manager said the man came in the store in the 700 block of South U.S. 1 in Fort Pierce and went to the cooler. The man took something, and left without paying.

"She watched him as he walked across the street to the Dollar Tree store, as he walked he removed an ice cream sandwich from the front of his pants and began eating it," the report states. "He then entered the Dollar Tree and came out a few minutes later with a drink and then began to walk west on Georgia Ave."

Ice cream sandwiches traditionally feature rectangular slabs of vanilla ice cream "sandwiched" by thin chocolate cookies of the same shape. They typically are stored in freezers where temperatures are below 32 degrees Fahrenheit -- as opposed to inside the pants where temperatures run closer to the body's standard 98.6 degrees.

Fort Pierce police found Silvia imbibing a beverage at Texas Court and Georgia Avenue.

He said he swiped the ice cream, which was valued at $1, "because his car had a flat tire and he only had three dollars and he was sorry."

The assistant manager wanted to press charges, and Silvia, of the 200 block of Southeast Fallon Drive in Port St. Lucie, was arrested on a misdemeanor theft charge.