Fed up with Butler County’s drug scourge, District Attorney Richard Goldinger has issued a warning to owners of suspected drug houses: we will take your homes.

“It’s time we send the message to these landlords that they must have accountability for the drug dealing that’s going on at their homes,” he said. “Too many landlords have been turning a blind eye to their tenants and what they’re doing.”

The county’s top law enforcement officer on Tuesday took what he acknowledged was “drastic action” in making good on his promise.

Led by Ben Simon, an assistant district attorney, Goldinger’s office filed court papers to seize 201 American Ave., a two-story house deemed “derivative contraband” of the city’s drug trade.

The Butler County Drug Task Force raided the home two weeks ago, busting the tenant, 44-year-old Gregory A. Gilliland, on felony charges that he and others used and sold heroin and crack cocaine there.

Eight months earlier, narcotics officers arrested Gilliland at the same house, which his parents own, after authorities received neighbors’ complaints of suspected drug activity there.

But that is not the only property Goldinger has set his sights on in his new offensive in the war on drugs.

Earlier this month, his office began sending out letters to owners of property where drug activity is notorious to police and to frustrated neighbors.

The written warning is clear: clean up your homes and get rid of dope-dealing tenants or prosecutors will go to court to forfeit the properties to law enforcement.

“Many of the houses (in Butler) are occupied by people that don’t own them and too many are allowing renters and others to come in and sell drugs out of them,” Goldinger said.

“We had to do something different. We can’t keep arresting (the occupants).”

Under state law, prosecutors have authority to seek forfeiture of any property believed to be involved in a crime or bought with proceeds from drug trafficking.

Forfeiture of property — money, guns, cars and even houses — seized in criminal cases occurs through civil proceedings initiated by the county district attorney on behalf of police departments.

Goldinger admitted that his office has tapped the law — the Controlled Substances Forfeiture Act — “a lot” over the years to assume ownership of drug dealers’ cash and weapons.

But going after real estate, he conceded, is “breaking new ground.”

Prosecutors in other counties, most notably Philadelphia and Allegheny, have seized homes linked to drug crime. Not Butler, until now.

“It’s unprecedented but we had to do something different,” Goldinger said. “We had to think outside the box.”

Since the state allows for civil — not criminal — forfeiture, prosecutors can go after property even if the owner has never been charged with or convicted of a crime.

The quirk in the law means that instead of suing the owner, the government sues the property itself.

And that explains the oddity of Tuesday’s court filing by the district attorney’s office, which lists the case name: “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania versus All that certain piece or parcel of ground located at 201 American Ave.”

That home, owned by Gary and Marlene Gilliland of Oakland Township, has been targeted for forfeiture, say prosecutors, because of its use” to facilitate the illegal distribution of controlled substances,” according to court documents.

Goldinger, Simon and county Detective Tim Fennell, who heads the county Drug Task Force, assert that the Gillilands allowed their son to live and deal narcotics there.

However, the Gillilands denied that assertion.

“I knew he was using drugs,” Gary Gilliland said, referring to his son, “but I did not know he was dealing drugs.”

But prosecutors in their court filing claim the owners not only knew what was going on but that they “knowingly and willfully” permitted their son to sell drugs at the house they bought in 2013.

Fennell said he personally told Gary and Marlene Gilliland of the numerous neighborhood complaints he and Butler police had received about their house.

“I talked about the drug activity there and that the neighbors were tired of it,” he said of his conversation with the couple soon after their son’s first arrest in July 2015.

Last summer, Gregory A. Gilliland was charged with misdemeanor possession after narcotics officers found suspected heroin and crack at the home. Those charges are pending in county court.

Soon after that case was filed, Goldinger said, Gary and Marlene Gilliland were “given notice” by Fennell.

“They were put on notice at that time: ‘There’s drug activity going on in your residence that you own. Knock it off or we’re going to have to take action against you,’” Goldinger said.

But the suspected drug activity — walk-up and vehicle traffic from suspected drug users and buyers — continued.

The county task force put the house under surveillance. On Feb. 1, according to court documents, a police informant bought four stamp bags of heroin from Gilliland at the home.

Investigators subsequently got a search warrant for the home, where they found Gilliland and several presumed customers at the March 18 raid.

Fennell said officers also found a “large amount” of drug paraphernalia including hypodermic needles, drug-cooking spoons, empty stamp bags of suspected heroin and crack pipes.

Gilliland was arrested, this time on felony drug charges. He remains in the Butler County Prison on those charges.

Simon said that second arrest against the back drop of the seemingly never-ending drug problem in Butler convinced the DA’s office to target the house directly and the owners indirectly.

Simon filed what is known as “application for process,” which starts the forfeiture process.

“No one’s kicked out. We’re not evicting anyone,” Simon said. “All we’re doing through the paperwork process is constructively seizing the house and preventing the owners from doing anything to hinder the future proceedings.”

If a property is “constructively seized,” it remains in the owner’s custody pending possible forfeiture.

But the owners, in this case the Gillilands, cannot transfer, hide, convey or sell the property, or do anything to diminish its value.

“It’s effectively putting that house under the jurisdiction of the court of common pleas,” Simon explained.

The DA’s next step, he noted, would be to file the forfeiture petition, after which the court would decide if the property was used to facilitate violation of state drug laws.

The Gillilands’ house may only be the beginning of prosecutors’ real estate forfeiture efforts.

Goldinger and Simon, signatories of two separate target letters sent this month, were blunt and pointed in assessing blame and in issuing an ultimatum to the landlords of two city properties where police drug raids occurred.

“Please be advised that you are being placed on notice that (the home) you rent to multiple individuals is being used to facilitate the sale, receipt, possession and concealment of controlled substance,” the letters read.

“This is allegedly being facilitated through your willful and continued actions of renting to known drug dealers and/or persons who conspire with drug dealers and who allows them to reside in the building despite not being named in any lease agreement.”

Each certified letter cited the last time police raided the property and arrested suspected dealers of trafficking “large amounts of narcotics out of your building.”

The correspondence concludes: “Consider this letter as formal notice that any future use of (the home) for the purposes described may subject your property to seizure and forfeiture pursuant to (Pennsylvania’s Controlled Substances Forfeiture Act).”

Neither Goldinger nor Simon would identify the houses or owners.

The targeted landlords, Goldinger said, should regard the letters as a wake-up call.

“We’re not alleging the landlords know (drug activity) is going on,” he said. “We’re telling them: ‘This is going on, and we’ve conducted raids. You’re on notice that if this continues, then we’re going to move.’”

“The ball’s in their court,” Simon said.

Prosecutors said as of Tuesday, they have not heard back from those landlords.

Goldinger did not rule out that more letters could be sent, and more homes could face forfeiture, as a way to combat drug trafficking.

“It’s a tool that’s provided in the law for us,” he said. “This is a drastic measure but these are drastic times. We just don’t have the capability to stop it the way we’re doing it right now.”