Marshall Grimes

A felon is accused of stashing a stolen handgun, cocaine and nearly $13,000 in currency in the ceiling of a Butler apartment.

Butler County Drug Task Force detectives on Tuesday arrested Marshall A. Grimes, 39, of Columbus, Ohio, at gunpoint upstairs at the apartment on the 100 block of South Main Street.

Grimes is being held in the Butler County Prison on $750,000 bail.

Chief county Detective Tim Fennell, who heads the task force, described Grimes as a “significant” drug dealer. Butler police were called around 2:10 p.m. for a report of a man who had pulled a gun on his girlfriend. The caller identified the man as “Marshall,” according to court documents.

That name was familiar to county task force officers who had been investigating Grimes for several months for suspected drug trafficking, specifically crack cocaine, at two different apartments in the same building on South Main Street, Fennell said Wednesday.

During its investigation, documents said, the task force learned from Columbus police that the defendant was considered “armed and dangerous.”

Fennell and county Detective John Johnson heard Tuesday's radio call and assisted city police at the apartment building.

A woman who lives in one of the apartments told officers that Grimes had run upstairs. Officers found him and ordered him to the ground. The tenant said she believed the defendant had hidden something in the back bedroom.

Officers, including a state narcotics agent, helped search the bedroom. In the suspended ceiling, authorities found a plastic shopping bag and a drawstring bag.

The shopping bag, documents said, contained about 3.6 ounces of suspected powder cocaine and 3.2 ounces of suspected crack cocaine. The estimated street value of the seized drugs is $10,000. In the drawstring bag, officers found a .380-caliber pistol and $12,806 in currency.

A check of the National Crime Information Center database showed that the pistol was reported stolen Nov. 19 in Columbus. Investigators noted that Grimes has prior convictions for felony drug offenses in Ohio that prohibit him from possessing any firearms in Pennsylvania. Grimes was arraigned on felony charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, felons not to possess firearms and receiving stolen property.