Ice cream maker gets probation after mistakenly selling his personal THC-laced product

A federal judge gave two years of probation to an ice cream maker who says he mistakenly sold some of his own personal product laced with THC, leaving three customers sick enough to end up in the emergency room.

Marc Flore said he never intended to distribute the coffee-Oreo ice cream that he infused with THC oil, but he left it in the New Hampshire store freezer with his regular offerings and didn’t label it properly. Months later the store served the ice cream to four people, all of whom fell ill.

Three were sick enough to go to the hospital and one experienced lingering symptoms for weeks, prosecutors said. Two ended up testing positive on work-issued drug tests.

But prosecutors cut Flore a break, asking the judge for a sentence below what the guidelines called for: Two years of probation and restitution to the two sickest victims.

“This defendant does not appear to need to be specifically deterred given the facts and circumstances of this case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Rombeau told the judge in a sentencing recommendation.

Flore’s lawyer said his client had suffered enough already.

“It has cost Mr. Flore his relationship with his children’s mother, public ridicule and embarrassment and a blemish on an otherwise stellar life,” Stephen Jeffco, the lawyer, told the judge.

He pointed out that Flore had no criminal record before, but now has a felony conviction.

U.S. District Judge Landya B. McCafferty accepted the agreement between the two sides, delivering the probation sentence and ordering a $3,000 fine, $8,000 in restitution payments and 20 hours of community service.

Flore opened his ice cream shop, Angelos Amore, in Newmarket in 2020. He made and sold ice cream out of the store, as well as selling to commercial establishments.

He also rented space to a catering company that eventually took over the whole space, buying Flore’s inventory to sell — and allowing Flore to continue making ice cream at night.

On Sept. 19, 2022, Flore made the tub of coffee-Oreo ice cream at issue, infusing it with the THC, the active drug found in marijuana. He later said it was for his own personal use.

But he labeled it as “coffee Oreo” and didn’t note the THC content, making it “indistinguishable” from the other tubs, according to his plea agreement.

He left the container in the freezer, where in March 2023 a caterer employee pulled it off the shelf and it was eaten by four people.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration later tested the ice cream and found its THC level was 0.31 mg/g.

Flore’s relatives and friends, many of them from his game and hobby activities, told the judge of his embarrassment at his lapse and how uncharacteristic the incident was.

“I believe he has learned a profound lesson from this experience and that he will make meaningful contributions to society moving forward,” one friend, Anne Lightbody, wrote in a character reference letter to the judge.

Among the victims was one juvenile who worked at the shop and ended up at the hospital where a test for marijuana came back positive, even though the minor denied having used the drug.

Two victims thought they were having strokes and were rushed to the emergency room for treatment.

One of those reported suffering panic attacks for several weeks afterward.