“I’m not a car thief, I’m a burglar.”
That’s what 59-year-old Frank Ortiz allegedly told Chicago police in 2023 after they caught him behind the wheel of a stolen Volkswagen Jetta. Indeed, Ortiz, a 14-time convicted felon, has always been more of a break-into-houses guy than a steal-somebody’s-car guy. He served 4½ years for that auto theft case.
Now, Ortiz is back in court, this time accused of returning to what prosecutors call his true specialty: residential burglary. Chicago police arrested him recently on charges that he broke into homes in Lakeview and Logan Square.
Around noon on April 25, a woman was in her bedroom in the 2300 block of North Albany when Ortiz entered the back door and claimed to be a Chicago police officer, prosecutors said in a detention petition. Suspicious, the woman texted her sister to call the real police…