CHICAGO – Two migrants from Venezuela, arrested a total of 10 times this year, are now charged with breaking into a restaurant warehouse on Oak Street Beach.
Jhoni Montes Alexander, 31, and Oscar Garcia Adrian, 25, were arrested while walking along the lakeside path with a pressure washer, toolbox and bolt cutters, according to a Chicago police report.
The owner of Whispers, located beachfront at 1001 North Lake Shore Drive, called 911 after seeing a video feed of two men breaking into the restaurant’s storage shed on Sept. 30, the report said.
Officers found that the shed had been broken into, but there were no intruders to be found. However, it didn’t take long for them to find a few suspects. Adrian and Alexander were standing a little further along the cycle path with the pressure washer and toolbox that would have belonged to Whispers.
Adrian told the arresting officers that two men had left the pressure washer and other items on the shore of the lake and that he “took ownership” of them. Prosecutors charged both men with burglary and possession of burglary tools after the restaurant owner provided video of them breaking into the shed, court documents show.
According to records, Adrian was in custody for shoplifting at the time of the Whispers incident. The shoplifting charge was filed after a TJ Maxx employee accused him of stealing a piece of luggage from the store’s Loop location on June 10.
His previous arrests included charges of battery in July, shoplifting in May, shoplifting in April and theft in April. Prosecutors have dismissed all of these cases.
Alexander’s court records show he pleaded guilty to shoplifting on September 17. In that case, he and an accomplice allegedly stole three pieces of luggage worth $1,634 from Macy’s on State Street in February. According to a CPD report, he told officers he was “proposing to go back to Venezuela.”
Records show he was given a 54-day sentence, which was fully satisfied by the time he wore an ankle monitor while the case was pending.
While in custody on Macy’s charges, he was arrested in April in Harwood Heights for shoplifting and in July in Chicago for obstruction of identification. Prosecutors dropped both cases.
