ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The prosecution and law enforcement in Belmont County has long been putting convicted drug traffickers’ ill-gotten drug money to a good use.

Recently, Belmont County Common Pleas Judge John Vavra has announced that drug trafficking forfeitures in his court now exceed more than a half-million dollars during the past four years. Vavra has ordered the forfeiture of profits of illegal drug sales totaling $517,798.30.

“These are profits that have been made from the sales. When they bust the trafficker, they find this money on them,” he said.

Vavra said in addition to protecting Belmont County residents by incarcerating the majority of the drug dealers, their gains from the sale of drugs have been seized and confiscated. Those funds are then invested in several law enforcement and prosecution accounts to be used to further investigate drug traffickers, arrest them and bring them to justice.

Although Vavra could not say how much money was seized in a given case, he said his court has been seeing numerous cases dealing with significant sums of money.

“We’ve had some larger cases,” he said, adding that the drug-related caseload continues to be heavy.

He said these accomplishments would not be possible without the efforts of all local law enforcement agencies. Vavra specifically credited the work of the drug task force arm of the Belmont County Major Crimes Unit, as well as the Belmont County Prosecutor’s Office.

In addition, Vavra pointed out that the Seventh District Court of Appeals has reviewed and approved all of his decisions in cases involving adjudication of guilt and forfeiture of drug sales profit. There have been nine appeals in total, though not all involve drugs, and Vavra’s decisions were upheld in every case.

“The decisions have been correct and the court of appeals has recognized that,” he said.

Belmont County Prosecutor Dan Fry said the seized money is generally divided 60 percent to 80 percent for law enforcement and 20 percent to 40 percent for the prosecutor’s office, depending on the agency involved. Funds are used for training for law enforcement officers, equipment such as recording devices and drug buy money for undercover operations.

“Drug forfeiture money is money that is confiscated from a drug dealer at the time of arrest,” Fry said, adding that Ohio law gives guidance as to when money can be seized and who can share in the proceeds.

“The law allows us to seize that money if we can show that these were illegal funds from drug trafficking,” he said. “Judge Vavra is correct in that we have seized a lot of money over the years for which we use on other drug investigations.

“Using a drug dealer’s own funds to investigate and arrest other drug dealers makes our efforts worth it,” said Fry. “The more money that is seized from dealers trying to peddle this poison in our community means less that the taxpayers have to cover and we will continue to do it where appropriate.”