Police raid home of former Orlando Sentinel managing editor Jane Healy in drug investigation
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Orlando police officers and the agency’s SWAT unit on Friday raided the home of former Orlando Sentinel managing editor Jane Healy, who serves as co-chair of Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings’ citizens panel to review tourist-tax funding requests.
Healy, who said she was briefly handcuffed but not arrested during the search, apparently was not the target of the drug investigation. Her adult son, Randall Healy Clark, 40, likely was.
Three times police have searched her home, which includes a guest house/garage apartment.
“I don’t know why they keep doing this,” said Healy, 74, in a telephone interview. “They have other ways of getting someone if they thought someone was here using drugs besides a full-on raid.”
She was not home at the time of the previous searches.
Orlando police said they have provided information to the city prosecutor’s office to see if the two-story residence can be declared a criminal nuisance, which could lead to fines against Healy, who has owned the home since 1994. Police said the investigation was prompted by neighbors’ complaints.
The city’s Criminal Nuisance Abatement Board functions similarly to its Code Enforcement Board. The city prosecutor must build a case that shows at least two instances of criminal activity in a six-month span.
If the city is able to build a case against a property, the board, which is public, can impose requirements such as adding fencing, lighting or other means of reducing crime. It can also impose fines capped at $250 per day, or put a lien on the property.
In a news release, police said there has been “significant law enforcement activity involving the residence” on Greenwood Street in the Lake Davis neighborhood since 2018, including 26 arrests and multiple drug seizures.
Healy disputed the arrest total, saying she knows of only three.
One of those — her son’s felony arrest in February 2022 on charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute — was dismissed before he was arraigned.
“There certainly hasn’t been 26 drug arrests here,” she said.
Healy said neighbors were uncomfortable with visitors. “I guess they’ve seen people here who don’t look like them and they get upset.”
Police said they previously found stolen vehicles at the property, including three motorcycles.
Police also alleged they have seized crystal meth, heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana and gamma-hydroxybutyrate or GHB, sometimes called the “date-rape drug,” because it can induce sleep.
Police said they arrested Healy’s son during a traffic stop Friday on a warrant for trafficking methamphetamine. Officers alleged they then found methamphetamine during a search of the vehicle.
A passenger, Patricia Frederick, 39, was arrested on suspicion of possessing fentanyl.
The traffic stop and alleged discovery of drugs led police to get a search warrant for the residence on Greenwood Street, which is owned by Healy, the former Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor.
Police said they found 25 grams of methamphetamine and a variety of other narcotics, including a gram of cocaine and various pills, during their search of the residence, a subject of neighbors’ complaints.
An occupant of the residence was arrested, Deborah Rogers, 38, on possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. According to the police press release, Audriana Gardner, 23, was arrested on a warrant from Seminole County for failure to appear and trespass in a structure or conveyance.
Healy said Gardner was not arrested at the Greenwood home.
Asked about the people who stayed on her property, she said, “You know, Randall is really big-hearted and there were friends of his who he let stay here, and sometimes he’s not a good judge of people. Some of them might have had criminal records. I don’t know.”
Chosen to co-chair the tourist-tax advisory task force by Demings, a former sheriff and Orlando police chief, Healy said she intends to present the panel’s report on TDT funding recommendations to Orange County commissioners Tuesday as scheduled.
“I didn’t get arrested,” she said.
Ryan Gillespie of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
