A suspected crack cocaine dealer was arrested Friday morning after drug officers found him hiding under bags and clothes in a bedroom closet of a Butler home, authorities said.

Mausee S. Brown, 34, was nabbed in a second-floor apartment during a warrant search at the house in the 300 block of Brown Street, which investigators believe he was using to sell drugs.

The Butler County Drug Task Force led the search that turned up nearly $5,000 in currency and other drug-related evidence.

“He’s a pretty good source of crack cocaine in town,” county Detective Tim Fennell, who heads the task force, said of Brown.

Two other men, including the apartment’s tenant, also were arrested in the search shortly after 6 a.m.

Fennell said officers for the past month have been conducting surveillance and making controlled drug buys at the apartment.

“We started looking at that house after neighbors complained about the constant flow of (suspected drug) customers, in and out,” he said.

District Judge Lewis Stoughton on Friday issued a search warrant for the apartment after he reviewed a summary of the evidence gathered in the investigation, court documents said.

Drug officers got there but by the time they made it into the home, Fennell said, someone was able to flush suspected drugs down the toilet.

Police arrested Michael R. Loftin, 49, the tenant, on a felony conspiracy charge for allegedly allowing Brown to use the apartment to sell drugs.

Raymond E. Toy, 41, of East Brady, Clarion County, also was arrested on felony drug possession charges stemming from an unrelated task force investigation last month.

Meanwhile, officers eventually found Brown in the closet, Fennell said.

Seized in the search was $4,900 in currency, drug packaging materials and several empty stamp bags of suspected heroin, documents said.

Fennell said Brown would be charged, probably Monday, with drug trafficking stemming from the investigation.

But on Friday, Butler police arrested and charged him in connection with an unrelated case March 16 when he allegedly gave a bogus name following a traffic stop in Butler.

City police said they stopped his vehicle and found more than $1,600, believed to be drug-selling proceeds.

Officers also seized a cell phone “filled with text messages consistent with the dealing of crack cocaine,” according to a police affidavit.

Police said they immediately arrested Brown on a felony charge of criminal use of a communication facility.

But at the time they charged him under the name “John Doe” because he wouldn’t give his real name.

He was placed in the county prison that day but released two days later after posting $25,000 bail.

Brown is back in the county prison, this time on $100,000 bail, following Friday’s arrest. Loftin and Toy also are in the county jail on $100,000 bail each.