2 workers charged with burglary after Kenwood high-rise fire

CHICAGO - Two workers with a company hired for restoration work on a Chicago high-rise apartment building following a deadly fire allegedly stole $19,000 and jewelry from one resident’s apartment, authorities said.

The men, ages 20 and 26, are both charged with felony residential burglary, court records show.

Cook County prosecutors told a judge Sunday the woman whose co-op apartment was burglarized was out of town last week but had a surveillance camera that alerted her to movement inside her unit on Chicago’s South Side.

That camera first captured the face of one of the men and then the second, just as he appeared to smash the camera, prosecutors said at Sunday’s bail hearing for the men.

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The 40-year-old woman later discovered two envelopes missing from her home — one containing $3,000, and the other with $16,000, as well as two bags of jewelry — and informed building management, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Building management then alerted the restoration company hired after a Jan. 25 fire started by someone smoking in a bedroom killed one person in the high-rise and sent eight more to the hospital.

According to police arrest reports, a supervisor with the restoration company identified the men in the video as temporary workers hired to work in the fire-damaged building. The supervisor said the workers were instructed not to enter any units in the building.