A popular doorman who won the trust and the house keys of residents at an East Side co-op helped himself to a quarter-million dollars in jewelry and even walked off with a resident’s safe, prosecutors said.

Edgardo Rodriguez, 39, of Brooklyn, who landed a job as a doorman at the Southgate co-op at East 52nd Street despite his status as a convicted felon, was arraigned yesterday at Manhattan Criminal Court for stealing $250,000 worth of property, including antique custom-designed jewelry.

“He is the classic conman,” the co-op president, Paul Gumbinner, said. “He was everybody’s favorite doorman. Everybody thought he was fabulous.”

Rodriguez, who was the doorman at 434 E. 52nd St. for three years, is accused of making copies of residents’ keys and burglarizing six apartments during a six-month period last year. Rodriguez, who was convicted of attempted robbery in 1999 and served one year in prison, allegedly stole cash, cell phones, watches – and unique items of jewelry that were later recognized by a dealer in Florida.

Since Rodriguez tended to steal specific items while leaving others untouched, most of the victims did not realize they had been burglarized until much later, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, said. But Rodriguez finally aroused suspicions when he stole a safe sometime between October 16 and 19.

“His big mistake was taking the safe,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “The owner knew that something was missing. The other people weren’t sure, because he didn’t take everything.”

The safe contained $100,000 worth of property, including jeweled Cartier necklaces, an emerald and ruby ring, diamond and pearl earrings, a collection of gold bracelets, 11 designer watches, 1940s brooches, and $200 in cash, according to the district attorney’s office.

The victim reported the theft to police, and a Manhattan-based dealer who had designed some of the jewelry was alerted. Two days later, the dealer was exhibiting at a Miami jewelry show when another vendor tried to sell him the stolen pieces, which he recognized because of their unique design. The dealer confiscated the jewelry and informed police. Investigators determined that Rodriguez pawned the jewelry at ASW Gold Pawn Shop in Brooklyn.

Later that month, another resident installed two video cameras in his apartment. That resident, who had watches, earrings, a fairy pin, and $7,900 in cash stolen from his apartment four months earlier, caught video footage of Rodriguez rifling through his drawers on October 30 and trying to dismantle one of the cameras, according to the district attorney.

Rodriguez did not realize there were two surveillance cameras in the apartment, Mr. Morgenthau said, adding, “While he was trying to disable one, he was caught on the other one.”

Rodriguez was arrested November 1 at the Southgate building and investigators allegedly found, in the car he was driving, numerous keys to the apartments in the building, as well as a cache of jewelry and other items that residents had reported stolen.

The pilfered cache, valued at $3,000, included watches, a wedding band, gold coins, a bottle of cologne, a cell phone, and a pearl necklace that had been brought to America from the Pacific at the end of World War II. A search warrant executed at Rodriguez’s home turned up more stolen jewelry.

Rodriguez has been incarcerated on $100,000 bail since his initial indictment December 10.

He was arraigned yesterday at Manhattan Criminal Court on additional charges of second-degree burglary and second-degree grand larceny, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. His court-appointed lawyer, Alexandra Bonacarti, did not return a phone message.

The building at 434 E. 52nd St. is a stone’s throw from the East River. It is said that Humphrey Bogart lived there in the early 1930s and that in 1973 John Lennon kept a love nest there with a mistress, May Pang.

Residents of the Southgate co-op seemed unfazed by the thefts and said the building was secure, with round-the-clock doormen at each of the five entrances and with security cards required to gain access to the different floors.

“I’ve lived here for 40 years,” Ron Scher, 70, a telecommunications consultant, said. “One of the reasons I moved here is for the security, and it’s only gotten better.”

John Schein, 60, a retired trader who lives in the building, said: “Burglaries can happen even if you have an armed guard on every floor. It happens everywhere.”

Diane Semhon agreed that Southgate was a “pretty safe building,” but she wanted to know, “Who did his background check?

Despite his record as a convict and his alleged string of burglaries, Rodriguez was so popular that some residents want to give him a second chance as a doorman, arguing, “Everybody’s entitled to make a mistake,” Mr. Gumbinner said.

“I can’t tell you how he slipped through the cracks,” the co-op president said, “but we check everybody who gets employed.” Mr. Gumbinner said the co-op board has no intention of rehiring Rodriguez.