Two men charged in restaurant burglary
WAYNESBURG – State police this week filed charges against a Burger King employee and another man accused of burglarizing the fast food restaurant in Franklin Township and stealing more than $3,600 from an office safe.
John A. Cooke Jr., 19, of 239 Edgar Road, Center Township, and Nathan R. Phillips, 21, of 109 Blacks Creek Road, Aleppo Township, were charged Tuesday with felony counts of burglary, criminal conspiracy, theft and receiving stolen property.
Police said Cooke and Phillips drove to the fast food restaurant at 130 E. Furman Highway in the early hours of Jan. 11 not long after Cooke and another worker closed the store the previous night. Police said Cooke placed cardboard in the door jam before leaving to inhibit the lock from securing the door near the restaurant’s indoor playground.
The main power to the building was turned off, according to court documents, although it was not known if that action disabled surveillance cameras inside the restaurant.
Cooke entered the store while Phillips watched from the outside holding the door so as not to trip the main alarm, police said.
Cooke then jumped over a counter and went into an office containing the safe, court documents allege. Police said Cooke learned the safe’s combination by watching another employee open it earlier. He allegedly placed $3,666 from the safe into a bag and the two men left the restaurant in a truck, police said.
Investigators became suspicious of Cooke because he was one of two workers who closed the store the previous night, and they found no forced entry to the building with the power disabled. Troopers interviewed Cooke and Phillips at separate times March 13 at the state police barracks in Waynesburg, where both allegedly confessed to the burglary.
Cooke allegedly told police he asked his store manager about the restaurant’s security system, which police said “made it easier to make the decision to commit the crime.”
Police said Phillips drove Cooke to work the morning after the burglary.
Cooke faces any additional felony charge of trespassing.
Neither man had been arrested or arraigned by Friday afternoon on the charges filed through District Judge Glenn Bates’ office. State police could not be reached for comment.