A convicted drug felon was ordered held for court on charges of selling heroin.

District Judge Pete Shaffer ruled Davon D. Stevens, 21, of Butler Township faces trial on new felony drug charges, following testimony at a preliminary hearing Monday.

A May 26 traffic stop in Butler for illegally tinted windows on Stevens’ car resulted in the chance discovery of heroin, said city Patrolman Jeremy Walters.

“The defendant got out of (the car) and it appeared he was trying to walk away,” the officer testified at the hearing. “I exited my vehicle and ordered him back in the car. That’s when I saw an object fall to the ground.”

Walters said he called for backup. When other officers arrived, Walter approached the suspect’s Lincoln sedan and immediately grew more suspicious.

“I could smell marijuana coming from the vehicle,” he told prosecutor Mark Lope, a county assistant district attorney.

He placed Stevens in handcuffs and asked another officer to pick up the object — a purple Crown Royal bag — that had fallen out of the defendant’s car.

The cloth bag, he said, contained 30 stamp bags of suspected heroin and other drug contraband, including a plastic bag of suspected marijuana. The name “Cowboy” was stamped on the bags believed to have heroin in them.

Walters said he searched Stevens and found $145 in currency in one of his front pants pockets.

The officer testified that he also noticed a cell phone in the car’s center console that was “continually ringing and alerting to new messages.”

Police seized the prepaid phone and on May 27 obtained a search warrant to examine it for evidence.

“There were well over 100 detailed messages in regards for the purpose of buying and selling (heroin),” Walters testified.

Many of the messages, he noted, specifically inquired about buying “Cowboys,” the name etched in blue ink on the stamp bags of suspected heroin.

The officer on cross-examination by Stevens’ attorney, Bruce Carsia of Pittsburgh, acknowledged that police had no direct evidence to link the defendant to the prepaid phone.

Many drug dealers favor prepaid phones — commonly referred to as “burn phones”— because they are more difficult to trace to the owner, according to law enforcement officials.

The disposable phones are often paid for with cash, and there is no record of subscriber information.

But when Carsia pressed Walters on how police determined the phone belonged to Stevens, the officer disclosed another piece of evidence in the case — a jailhouse conversation between the defendant and his father.

A June 16 report received by police, Walters said, described the recorded phone call the defendant made from the Butler County Prison. During the call, the son and father allegedly discussed the drug investigation.

“Davon admits the phone is his,” Walters told Carsia, in referring to the recorded conversation, “and he pays $50 a month for it.”

Stevens faces felony charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal use of a communication facility.

He also is charged with misdemeanor possession and traffic violations including driving with improper sun screening on windows.

He remains in the county prison on $75,000 bail.

Court records, meanwhile, show Stevens recently served time stemming from a prior drug case.

Butler police in that case arrested the defendant Sept. 11, 2014, after finding him with 50 bags of heroin. He eventually pleaded guilty to felony drug possession and on March 26 was sentenced to 6 to 12 months in county prison followed by two years on probation.

Stevens was released that same day for time served, records showed.