Handcuffed and barefoot, wearing a T-shirt and lounge pants, a suspected drug dealer made a run for it.

Moments earlier, he was sleeping Thursday when the Butler County Drug Task executed a pre-dawn search warrant at the Butler duplex where they said he was staying.

They seized suspected heroin or fentanyl, crack cocaine and other evidence from the home, authorities said.

Officers eventually located the escapee — 33-year-old Ryan T. Gomez of Pittsburgh — hiding inside a sport utility vehicle underneath auto parts at nearby Fuller's Auto Sales on Pillow Street.

District Judge William Fullerton arraigned Gomez on felony charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and flight to avoid apprehension.

He also is charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest, all misdemeanors.

Gomez is being held in the Butler County Prison on $100,000 bail.

The drug task force obtained the search warrant Wednesday night following an investigation of suspected heroin and crack cocaine at the apartment.

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A police informant was used during the investigation to make at least two controlled buys of suspected heroin or fentanyl sales there.

Officers, armed with the warrant, went to the home around 6:15 a.m. looking for Gomez, said county Detective Tim Fennell, who heads the task force.

They first knocked, but then forced open the door. They believe they roused the defendant from slumber. He was alone.

Officers searched him and seized $1,340 in currency from his lounge pants pockets. Some of that money, investigators said, included prerecorded money used in at least one of the earlier drug buys.

Fennell said Gomez was detained, placed in cuffs — with his hands in the back — and taken outside. But while being led to a police car, he allegedly ran.

The escape touched off a search in the area of Fuller's Auto near Michelle Krill Field at Historic Pullman Park. A state police helicopter was called in to assist.

Authorities believe that Gomez, despite being in handcuffs, managed to get over a fence and get into Fuller's gated property.

“He was found in the back of an SUV under some car parts,” Fennell said. “He was on the back floor.”

By then, the suspect had managed to get his cuffed hands in front of his body.

Back at the apartment, officers said, the search turned up 29.4 grams of suspected crack and about 3 grams of a white powder believed to be heroin or fentanyl.

The suspected drugs were hidden in an Ajax cleaner container under the kitchen sink.

Five stamp bags with suspected heroin or fentanyl were found in a cabinet above the sink, according to officers, and a small amount of suspected marijuana was found in the living room on a mantle above the television.

Also seized, authorities said, were drug-packaging materials, a marijuana grinder and two cell phones.

During his courtroom arraignment around 10 a.m. at Fullerton's office, Gomez was still barefoot and wearing what he had on when he allegedly fled.

He told Fullerton that he is married and has four children, ages 15, 14, 12 and 10. Another child, he said, previously died. He also said he is unemployed.

When asked if he had been previously arrested, the defendant replied, “Mainly domestic (disputes).”

But that prompted Fullerton to cite some of Gomez's other prior charges — such as aggravated assault and fleeing or attempting to elude police — that he didn't mention.

The judge also advised that he was setting bail at $100,000 due in part to the seriousness of the charges and the defendant's criminal history. The relatively high bail did not please Gomez.

“The residence that they found that stuff in,” he told Fullerton, “is not my residence, or nothing like that.”

But when the judge reminded Gomez that he was also arrested for running from police, he replied, “That's true.”