Strangers With Ice Cream, and Urns

By Joanna Miller in News on Jul 10, 2006 9:02PM

Things sure have changed since Chicagoist was a kid. In our day, creepy old men tried to lure children with candy and, later, booze and cigarettes.

Apparently that’s a little too pedestrian for today’s jaded youth.

A Chicago ice cream vendor has been charged with criminal sexual assault after luring a teenage girl to his home with promises to show her his religious statues and his dead mother’s remains.

Once at his home, Juan Ponce de Leon, 44, allegedly took the 17-year-old girl to his attic and “rubbed oil over her naked body” while drinking tequila, and assaulted her.

He told a woman who lives in his house that he was performing a cleansing, according to prosecutors.

What was that about banning ice cream trucks after 7 p.m.?

Scary Ice Cream Truck via JoshB