Prosecutors charged a North Side man with felony theft in connection with an ATM heist at an Edgewater gas station earlier this month.
Jafar Khan is not accused of participating in the armed robbery of Marathon gas, 6262 North Clark. But prosecutors said police found video that shows men dumping the stolen ATM from his truck while he sat in the passenger seat hours after the hold-up.
At 3:14 a.m. on April 12, a masked man walked into the service station and implied he had a gun as he walked to the back door and allowed two accomplices inside, prosecutors said. The cashier backed away and called 911.
The offenders loaded the gas station’s ATM onto a dolly, wheeled it outside, and loaded it into a Ford Explorer.
Four hours later, a witness saw two men kick the ATM from the bed of a pickup truck into a parking lot on the Northwest Side.
“Now it’s your f*cking problem,” one of the men told the witness before the truck pulled away.
Prosecutors said video captured the truck’s license plate, which is registered to Khan. It also allegedly recorded footage of Khan sitting in the passenger seat.
Police arrested Khan this week. He denied he was the man in the passenger seat and he said the truck and license plate aren’t his, according to prosecutors.
Khan, 58, lives with his wife and has two children, Assistant Public Defender Suzin Farber said. He has no criminal convictions.
Judge Barbara Dawkins released him on a recognizance bond.