A Villager with a troubled past in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown was arrested Thursday afternoon after running into a ditch in Ocklawaha.
When a Florida Highway Patrol trooper arrived at the crash site on SE 122nd Place, he met up with a Marion County sheriff’s deputy who had the vehicle’s driver, 61-year-old Michael Norman Heaney, in the backseat of his patrol cruiser.
The deputy told the trooper that a witness to the crash who lived nearby saw Heaney’s blue passenger car hit the stop sign at the intersection of SE 122nd Avenue and SE 135th Avenue before running into the ditch. The witness said Heaney was in the driver’s seat and was the only person in the car. And she said she went to make sure he was OK and then called 911, the FHP report states.
Heaney told the trooper that he was trying to turn right on SE 122nd Place when another vehicle hit him from behind and caused him to hit the stop sign and run into the ditch. He then stated that another vehicle passed him on the right and caused him to run off the road, the report says, adding that that there was damage to the rear of Heaney’s vehicle.
The trooper noted that Heaney couldn’t keep his balance, had slurred speech and his breath had a strong odor of alcohol when he climbed out of the deputy’s patrol vehicle. That led the trooper to open a criminal investigation for driving under the influence, so he read Heaney his rights and asked him again what had happened.
Heaney replied that he was driving and someone pushed him off the roadway. He confirmed that the car in the ditch belonged to him. And he agreed to participate in field sobriety tests in a nearby parking lot at the corner of County Road 25 and SE 135th Avenue, the report says.
After failing all three tests, Heaney was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he provided breath samples that showed .046 and .043 blood-alcohol content. Those samples were taken more than three hours after the crash and Heaney also agreed to provide a urine sample, the report says.
Heaney, who lives at 1627 Myrtle Beach Drive in the Village of Country Club Hills, was charged with driving under the influence with property damage. He was being held on $5,000 bond and is due in court on July 18 at 8 a.m. to answer to the charge.
Heaney was found in a Villager’s vehicle in August 2015 and was arrested after the man reported someone trying to break into his home through his lanai. And in August 2014, Heaney was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated assault after allegedly threatening his brother with a pair of kitchen knives.
